Let's be honest, selling isn't easy.
But fear not! Sales training makes everything easier! Right? RIGHT?
Ok, maybe it's not the magic bullet you want, but investing in sales training for all your sales reps and managers is a smart business decision, no matter how you slice it.
But it isn't only sales training that you should be thinking of, oh no. You should also be considering what resources you need to help drive, motivate, improve, and inspire your sales team to close those leads and give customers the best experience possible.
Sales isn't a one-size-fits-all situation. There are many different types of sales training, namely sales coaching seminars, sales coaching courses, sales management courses, and various sales coaching software and tools that are meant to hone skills, introduce new skills, or increase efficiency. Since there are so many different offerings, it's important to focus on the content and delivery style of the training, perhaps even more so than the type, as quality can vary widely.
Types of Sales Training |
Description |
Key Considerations |
Sales Coaching Seminars |
Flexible training, often online, focusing on specific topics like cold calling or general sales coaching. Motivational and energizing for sales teams. |
Online vs. in-person, free vs. paid, focused vs. broad topics, cost, attendee capacity, content relevance, and speaker credibility. |
Sales Coaching Courses |
Classroom-style training with a structured outline, ranging from a few hours to several days, often includes certification for participants. |
Time commitment, online vs. in-person, active participation, certification availability, cost, and attendee capacity. |
Sales Management Courses |
Training for sales leaders to develop soft skills, build training programs, and lead teams effectively, focusing on modern strategies and techniques. |
Focus on soft skills and leadership needs, relevance to current trends, online vs. in-person, time commitment, and cost. |
Sales coaching seminars are very flexible and range from online to onsite training, or a combination of both (though these days, seminars are typically online). Sales seminars can focus on a specific sales topic, for instance, cold calling or inside sales, or you can choose more broad topics like general sales coaching. However, sales seminars can feel more like listening to a motivational speaker, so if getting your sales team pumped up is your goal, sales seminars are quite good at it. Sales coaching seminars can be free or paid, and whether you choose to go the free or paid route depends on what you need for your sales reps to be successful.
What you should look for in a sales coaching seminar:
Sales coaching courses are a bit different from seminars, as training can take place over days, and feels more like a classroom-type learning environment than listening to a motivational speaker. Sales courses can range from a couple of hours to a few days or even a week of training, so it's important to understand the time commitment of whatever course you want to sign up for. Thankfully, sales coaching courses typically offer some sort of certification or certificate at the end, so it's great for a sales professional's resume.
What you should look for in sales training courses:
How can you expect your sales reps to be amazing if you don't have the training and experience to back them up? Sales management courses are just as important, if not more, than training for your sales reps.
Sales management courses focus on things like effective communication, how to build and develop continuous sales training for your reps, and hire sales reps that fit right into your team's culture and drive for selling.
As you've probably guessed, sales management training courses tend to focus more on taking those fundamental soft skills and building on them to guide your sales team to success.
Sales management courses can be online or in-person similar to sales coaching but tend to be offered in a course or program format rather than a seminar.
What you should look for in a sales management course:
Technology always makes things easier and more efficient right? Ok, maybe not always, but it's pretty essential to have a good technology deck to help your sales reps perform at their very best.
Here are some essential technologies that you can't go wrong with providing to your sales reps.
Sales coaching software helps you and your sales reps review calls and refine processes, and identify challenges, all to provide better customer service and improve sales close rates. When integrated with a CRM like Ringy, sales coaching software does things like analyze customer interactions and provide an overview of what was said to give you ideas on how to improve, and offers analytics and other insights to help provide an exceptional customer experience, close more sales, and even onboard new sales reps faster.
Here are some of the most effective sales coaching apps and tools.
Tool/Category |
Description |
Key Benefits |
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) |
Centralized system for organizing and managing lead information; integrates with tools like POS, email, VoIP, Google Analytics, and websites. |
Ensures organized leads, simplifies segmentation, and enables more focused sales interactions to effectively move customers through the sales funnel. |
Email Automation |
Automates email responses and personalization to target specific leads, enhancing marketing and sales efforts. |
Increases engagement, saves time and drives revenue. In fact, 59% of B2B marketers report email as their top revenue generator. |
VoIP and Softphone |
Allows sales reps to make and receive calls via the internet using devices like computers and smartphones, ensuring mobility and connectivity. |
Enables flexibility, improves productivity, and integrates with CRM to provide customer insights directly to sales reps during calls. |
Facilitates text-based communication with leads, using automation to enhance productivity and engagement. |
Boosts conversations, improves productivity, and creates new sales opportunities for businesses of all types. |
Sales training isn't all sunshine and rainbows. There can be real sales challenges that you and your team have to overcome to earn success in the sales space.
Probably the biggest challenge with any training, and sales training is no exception, is the lack of engagement from employees. Let's face it, nobody likes doing boring training where they don't feel challenged or interested. One of the ways you can combat this challenge is to carefully choose the training that has elements that are proven to be more engaging to learners, like gamification which is putting video game elements into training courses. How cool is that?
Every team has strengths and weaknesses. This doesn't mean that your team isn't good, it just means they are regular human beings with things they are great at and things they need to work on. Being able to recognize what challenges your team has without judgment and choosing training to address those challenges is paramount.
Whether your team needs help with guiding leads through the sales funnel and closing more sales, or they need a clearer understanding of sales processes and how to utilize sales tools, think about the biggest challenges your team has and select training that aligns with helping them solve those challenges.
In your quest to identify your team's strengths and weaknesses, keep in mind that 59% of companies report the primary obstacle is a lack of accountability among salespeople for implementing the training they receive.
So, create a structured accountability system. This can include setting clear expectations, incorporating real-world practice sessions, and implementing regular follow-ups or performance reviews to track progress.
Honestly, active listening is such an important skill to have in sales. Prospects often have trouble articulating exactly what they want or need, and it's up to the salesperson to pick up on those subtle cues during conversations that are sure to be key to closing the sale later on.
Active listening techniques
Sometimes, you have to work with what you've got and make sure your training falls within your department's budget. The good news is that sales training can range from free to the highest price point you can think of, depending on what type of training you need. That might seem overwhelming, but if you consider that training is more of an investment rather than an expense and that some forms of training (like online) can be cheaper than others, then you can more easily focus on what training works for you and your team.
These days, geographical location isn't as big of a challenge as it used to be. Investing in incompetent online training courses means that if your team is spread across a large geographical area, they can still all receive the same training. Just be careful if you choose live online training, as time zone differences can potentially be an issue.
To ensure your sales training delivers results, it's crucial to evaluate its impact on individual and team performance. Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, you can track progress and identify areas for improvement.
KPIs are essential for assessing the success of sales training programs. Metrics like conversion rates, average deal size, and customer retention provide clear insights into the effectiveness of the training.
Monitoring these indicators helps sales managers identify patterns and refine strategies to boost outcomes.
Assessments, such as quizzes, surveys, and role-play exercises, help measure knowledge retention among sales reps. These tools enable sales trainers to pinpoint skill gaps and customize future training sessions to address specific needs effectively.
Feedback from participants is invaluable for refining sales management courses and coaching seminars. Collecting input through surveys or informal discussions highlights what resonates with the team and what needs improvement, ensuring ongoing enhancement of training materials.
Regularly reviewing individual performance before and after sales training is a vital step. It provides a tangible measure of improvement and identifies whether the training aligns with the team's goals. Sales managers can use these reviews to tailor coaching for maximum impact.
Measuring the return on investment (ROI) of sales training involves analyzing pre- and post-training metrics. Tracking improvements in sales revenue, customer satisfaction, and other KPIs helps justify the investment and guides the design of future training initiatives.
It can be tough to pinpoint what exactly your sales team or an individual salesperson needs so that they can improve. In addition, it can be time-consuming to gather data from individual sources and compile it together so you actually have something tangible to show your sales team or salesperson that you're not just making things up.
A CRM like Ringy is the best tool to help you with sales coaching, and here's why.
Forget foraging around various systems and pieces of software to gather individual data. With a CRM, everything's available in one place, and you can often see a birds-eye view of the most important information you need via a dashboard.
Here is a screenshot of Ringy's demo dashboard. As you can see, the dashboard shows various information for an individual sales rep, like leads, any appointments scheduled, account balance (business specific), and more.
In the screenshot below of Ringy's dashboard, the tabs on the side allow you to switch between different modes of information so you can check more information like calendars, SMS, and marketing to gather more information about performance. This allows you to identify opportunities for improvement in how leads are nurtured, and customers are reached, like drip marketing, automation, and more, which gives you a clearer understanding of how your sales reps are performing in each stage of the sales process.
When your CRM integrates with software that you already use, it makes it easier to not only see everything in one place but to continue to use software that you're comfortable with using. For instance, Ringy's CRM integrates with Google Calendar, so you can see exactly what's going on without having to switch around to multiple applications.
Regardless of how long you or your team have been in the sales industry, there's always an opportunity to learn something new. Though the fundamentals of sales haven't changed much over time, the way we target, reach, and communicate with customers is ever-evolving, and training helps sales professionals stay on their toes and evolve alongside the technology that supports their work.
Now that you have seen how our CRM can aid in sales training, we are confident you want to elevate your efforts.
Ringy CRM is a powerful tool designed to streamline lead management, enhance communication, and help your sales reps achieve outstanding results. Request a demo today and see the difference Ringy can make!