Iain Swanston
The Definitive Guide to Sales Training
Introduction
We’ve written this guide based on the most common questions we are asked by companies considering purchasing Sales Training, those who have bought sales training from us, and those who are considering implementing their own sales training programmes.
Our goal is to give you as much information as possible to make an educated decision on Training for you and your business.
If there are any questions we have missed then please leave a comment below and we will add them in for future visitors.
Sometimes the answers to these questions may lead to other questions which are unique to your situation and if that’s the case you can reach us via the contact page.
Related Content on Sales Training
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Enterprise Sales Training Course
Advanced Sales Training Course
Sales Training for Unemployed Salespeople
Sales Training Programmes for Entrepreneurs
Sales Training and Coaching for Consultants
Discovering Why Sales Training Fails
Sales Training for Exhibition Sales
Sales Training Courses in London
Sales Training Courses in Manchester
Sales Training Courses in Scotland
Sales Training Courses in Birmingham
Sales Training Courses in Northern Ireland
Sales Training Courses in Newcastle
Sales Training Courses in Leeds
Sales Training Courses in Bournemouth
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1. Sales Training Prices
How much does Sales Training Cost?
The biggest influence on training costs are the way that the training course or content is delivered. Free sales training is available by reading books and some online courses. Paid training in most cases involves facilitator-led sessions and costs between £450 per person for a one day course, up to circa £10,000 per person for 12 month programmes.
We have an open and transparent pricing policy and you can view the prices of all our sales training programmes.
Larger organisations can make savings by volume purchasing and Facilitator costs are between £3,500 and £15,000 per day, however, in most cases they will restrict class sizes to circa 15 to maintain a good learning environment.
As most companies move away from Impact Training (one-day events with no follow up) more and more companies are adopting a longer-term approach to developing their salespeople and using regular weekly and monthly sales training and coaching sessions.
Is Sales Training Effective?
The level of effectiveness of training is directly linked to the time spent designing the training programme, measuring the outputs of the sales training, and lastly following through on the training to ensure it is embedded in the organisation moving forward.
As a minimum, the follow-through would include sales coaching but may include further training and personal development.
If you consider the Sales Reps are in effect learning new skills for life as long as the training is relevant, well delivered and receives follow through training easily delivers a strong ROI.
2. Designing Sales Training Programmes
What is Sales Training?
Sales Training refers to the process of teaching and developing salespeople on how to sell more effectively. Training may include both the theoretical and practical skills required to be effective in sales.
Sales Effectiveness can be measured in many different ways, however, the main KPI’s may include Total Sales, Cost of Sales, Sales Margins, Sales Conversion ratios, Length of Sales Cycle and Lifetime Customer Value.
Training may include Skills Training which can also be referred to as Sales Competencies or Learning Competencies. These refer to the practical activities that salespeople undertake on a regular basis. This could include skills such as Prospecting, Rapport Building, Active Listening, Questioning & Planning.
What is a Sales Training programme?
A Training programme is typically a long term learning and development programme lasting for between 6 months and a year, whereas a Training course would normally be held over 1 or two days.
Training programmes often include a number of sales training courses that form part of the wider training programme.
What is a Sales Training process?
A Training process is a step by step programme that would take a Salesperson through the different areas of sales that they need to develop and improve.
An example of this would be when a new person joins a company they will go through a Sales Training Process that may include training on the company’s history, products and services, target markets, case studies, skills training and sales management training.
The sales training process often needs to be flexible to allow learners to join at different points in the process and allow them to progress at different speeds which is called self-paced learning.
What Sales Training ideas do you have?
All Training should be needs-based, meaning that the topics or ideas should be driven by the needs of the salespeople and the business. These training needs are often found by studying the sales data, analytics, industry trends or the future needs of the business if there is a change in sales strategy.
Training ideas are the start of the learning process as they need to be developed into structured programmes with learning objectives and learning outcomes that can be assessed and measured.
If the Training is not needs-based then there is a real danger that the training will have no relevance to the Salespeople. When this happens learners switch off and even important components within the training are missed.
How do I create a Training curriculum?
A Training curriculum will vary dependent on the course design and learning objectives.
We recommend:
1. Identifying the Sales Competencies required for success in the Sales role from a business perspective
2. Identify the sales competencies that make your Top sales performers stand out
3. Prioritise the competencies based on your KPI’s for success
4. Understand what Best Practice is for each Competency in your organisation and document it
5. Create appropriate learning content with learning objectives and measurable outcomes
6. Train Salespeople on the Sales Competencies and measure the outcomes
7. Use Sales Managers and Top Performers for follow-through coaching that reinforces the training.
8. Link financial rewards to learning goals as much as revenue goals
What Training Competencies should I consider?
Historically training was delivered via 1 and 2-day courses however as training itself has developed more and more organisations break down their training needs into Competencies. We group these competencies into the four main areas of sales performance which are:
1. Finding new customers
Why Prospects Buy, How to target prospect, Making Cold Calls to Prospect, How to Uncover Business Pain, Uncovering Where Prospects See Value, Using Social Media to Sell, Building a Personal Brand, Qualifying Sales Tenders, Listening Skills
2. Closing new customers
Building Trust, Consultative Selling Skills, Handling Stalls & Objection, Maintaining Sales Pipelines, Differentiating your Products and Services, How to Beat your Competition, Selling Value Not Price
3. Growing existing customer revenues and
Selling through Customer Service, Key Account skills, Maximising Meetings with Prospects, Preparing for Sales Negotiation
4. Development or Learning Goals
Managing Personal Time, Improving Self Performance, Understanding Human Behaviour, Leading Others, Coaching and mentoring, Mindset
The relevance of each Sales Competency can be different from one business to another and one industry to another however the main competencies we work with are
Will you help us design our own Bespoke Sales Training programme?
Yes. We can work with you to co-create your own learning programmes and content. Depending where you are in the design process this takes anything from 2 weeks to 2 months.
Who needs Sales Training?
Many different groups of people need sales training, however, the most common groups include Graduates, People transitioning to Sales from another position, Salespeople looking to develop their careers, Entrepreneurs, Consultants and Engineers.
In reality, anyone who has contact with customers, whether that be via chat, phone or face to face can benefit from Training. More and more companies are asking for formal training as part of the interview process, as they only want to hire new salespeople who can hit the ground running so to speak.
Changes in Buyer behaviour means that where previously customers were served by humans either face to face or telephone are now purchasing the same products and services by shopping carts online. If anyone in Sales wants to future proof their career they should invest continuously in themselves.
Do you provide Learning Management Systems?
Yes. Learning Management systems (LMS) are online software applications that provide the end to end management of the learning and development of your sales team.
There are many LMS applications to choose from that have different features and if you have specific requirements you will need to undertake some research. For most companies over 80% of their LMS requirements can be met with Microsoft applications that they are already paying for.
We use MS Teams as the base platform which we customise to include Needs Analysis, Sales Playbooks, Training Courses, Learning Assessments, Coaching Programmes and Content Management Systems.
What Different Sales Training methods are available?
There are 4 main training methods that companies are using as follows:
1. Self Study. As a training method self-study is difficult to measure in terms of effectiveness. Without any design or structure or support there will be a limit to how effective this method is however all training and learning is good training so this should not be discounted.
2. Role Play. This is not always popular, however, when Roleplay sessions are designed and conducted well they are not only very powerful, they are also enjoyable for the participants. Roleplay continues to be the most effective way to build the muscle memory required to make real changes in sales behaviour.
3. Observation. Many companies monitor and record telephone calls to ensure Salespeople are following their sales process and complying with any regulatory requirements. For Field Sales Teams “ride-alongs” whereby a Sales Manager or Sales Mentor accompanies a Sales Rep to observe and provide feedback.
4. Workshops. Sales Workshops are a great way to facilitate peer learning amongst your Sales Team however their success lies in the design and facilitation of each session. Workshops are usually focussed around a single topic and would last between 1 hour and 1 day.
Training Courses. Despite the move away from Impact Training, Sales Training courses are still a powerful sales training method. In most cases training courses are now highly interactive, activity-based sessions that engage and inspire learners.
5. Self-Directed Sales Training. When people have ownership of anything they tend to have a higher rate of engagement so allowing Sales Teams to Self Direct and in effect choose their own training can be very powerful. In order to be effective Self Directed training needs to have a framework that guides and challenges learners.
Sales Playbooks. Sales Playbooks are digital repositories that contain everything on how and organisation sells. The “Books” are divided into chapters that contain different information such as products and services, sales plays, the companys sales process, product and service information, technical data, case studies and testimonials. Playbooks are great tools that every organisation should have.
3. Types of Sales Training Available
What types of Training programmes do you offer?
There are many different types of Training Programmes however most training programmes are categorised by course delivery type:
1. Online via our Learning Portal
2. Open Courses, where anyone can attend from any company
3. In-house Courses where we deliver courses exclusively for one organisation
4. Bespoke Sales Training programmes where we co-create learning content with you
Once you have chosen your course delivery type sales training programmes are further categorised by their content:
Product Training & Sales Skills Training.
In terms of Sales Skills Training the most popular skills bases sales training programmes are:
1. Telephone Sales Skills
2. Key Account Management Training
3. Consultative Selling Skills Training
4. Sales Management Training
Many Training programmes now include an element of Sales Coaching to ensure follow-through which makes every training programme more effective.
Do you provide Online Sales Training?
Online training has become more and more popular and now nearly every organisation delivers part of their training online.
The most common area for this is the adoption of online training as part of a Sales Enablement system which are one-stop repositories for everything connected to sales inside an organisation.
Online Training is also widely used for onboarding new salespeople, both graduates and experienced salespeople as it allows them to quickly learn the fundamentals of selling within that organisation without tying up more senior salespeople to deliver this.
We provide Online Training both as a stand alone service and to compliment and support our face to face delivery. Our training programmes are delivered via Microsoft Teams and prices start at £97 + VAT
Do you provide Training courses for beginners?
There are numerous options for training courses for beginners with most companies having their own in house onboarding programmes. In addition, there are many sales training courses for beginners available online, however, online learning for sales does have it’s limitations.
You can’t teach someone how to make a pot without at some stage, them getting their hands dirty and practising on a pottery wheel. Selling is a hands-on activity that needs to be learned on the job.
Do you provide Sales Training Videos?
Yes all our online training courses include raining videos which are a great learning tool to complement and support a training programme.
They are especially helpful for Remote training and coaching and really lend themselves to product, process and technical training. Whilst it is possible to use video for Skills training it can be difficult to include every context and therefore needs to be used as part of a wider blended learning programme.
Do you provide Sales Webinars?
Yes. We run monthly Training webinars for our customers as a way to reinforce our Training access our Sales Trainers from anywhere in the world.
Our webinars include the facility to ask the presenters questions and in most cases these webinars can be recorded and accessed offline.
These can form the basis of a lunch and learn where you need to stimulate a conversation around a particular sales topic.
Do you provide PPT (PowerPoint) presentations on your Training?
No. We do use PPT, however, our sales trainers only use them as a way to support our blended learning process.
Blended learning is an approach to training that includes a mix of different content such as Training PPT’s and quizzes, worksheets, templates, guides and most importantly, activities and interactions with the sales trainer and their peer group.
Furthermore, studies have shown that people learn and retain knowledge and skills more by doing than training. This is more relevant in Sales than most other topics.
Do you provide post course support for Training?
Yes. We use our online learning portal to engage with your salespeople before the training to ensure we include and specific content they need. After training our participants have access to the portal for a further 12 months to ensure they get the support they need.
Do you provide Sales Coaching?
Yes. We have a range of sales coaching programmes available for Salespeople and Sales Leaders.
5 Easy Ways for Using MS Teams for Sales
There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…
Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video…
In this article we will cover...
Using MS Teams for Sales
We’ve previously written about how we use Microsoft OneNote for Sales Management for everything from recording meeting notes through to online sales coaching and training and sales playbooks. We are big fans of OneNote, but what really turbocharges OneNote for us, is the ability to create, store, access and use inside MS Teams.
With so many people now using MS Teams from home Teams has gone from a Business product to a household brand that everyone can use. Unlike its competitors that lack the Enterprise level of security, MS Teams has multilayered security allowing users to configure Teams to bring sales prospects, customers and employees all together. In some cases that might not be appropriate, however, in many cases we help our clients configure Teams so they have:
- Using the Public Access feature to deliver Live Events & Sales Webinars for Lead Generation
- Using Group Access to position your business as an Industry thought leader
- External Company access for Sales Prospects to take them through a Complex Sales Process
- In house access where Teams for Managing Sales Opportunities, for example, collaborating on Tenders
- In House access where Teams is used as the “host platform” for a Learning Management System based on OneNote, MS Forms, Planner, Yammer, Stream, To Do, Calendar and My Analytics or even third party apps like Moodle.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these scenarios and see why using MS Teams for sales makes so much sense.
1. Public Access for Live Events using MS Teams for Sales
Every business needs new customers and the Live Events feature inside Teams allows you to create and run events open to the public as part of your Lead Generation Programme. Over the years we have found that many Salespeople struggle to pick up the telephone and make sales calls.
Some even struggle to send emails and LinkedIn connection requests because they are introverts and don’t want to face the possible rejection that comes in sales. We’ve found that create FREE high-value Events are a great way to overcome this because most Salespeople are much happier calling or emailing a FREE invitation. The reality is Events are a great way to position your business, raise awareness and start conversations with prospects.
If you’re struggling with ideas on what High-Value event you could deliver think about what’s relevant and what’s current. Are there changes in Legislation surrounding your industry? Are their new trends in your industry?
If you’re still unsure look up your Industry News site and run a Live Event on the topic they are headlining with. If you don’t know anything about the topic find the expert source that the News article referenced and interview them for the Live event using questions from the attendees.
ENABLING THE LIVE EVENTS FUNCTIONS INSIDE MS TEAMS
If you are planning on using MS Teams for Sales, the Public Access feature may not be available or switched on in your companies current MS Teams platform. If Public Access is not available then you will require a user with Admin Rights to switch this feature on from inside the Teams Admin Centre. Once Inside the Admin Centre you should look for the Meetings section and from there the Live Events policies. Please check the video for easy to follow directions.
The notes not only help us remember what was said and what next steps need to be taken they are great for referring back to when we send a “Thank you for meeting me email” with a summary of the notes and if we need to create a proposal or presentation later in the sales process.
If you are in the Admin Centre it’s worthwhile using the additional features in Teams to customise your Meeting Invitations:
Your Company Logo
Your Legal T’s and C’s
Your Support Contact for the Event
Your Company strapline in the Footer
These are then displayed whenever a recipient opens their Meeting Invite.
We should point out we’re not a Tech Channel so here are the links to Microsofts’ own guide to making these changes.
Getting started with Microsoft Teams Live Events
Setting up Live Events in MS Teams
Once you have Live Events configured you can create your own Event from inside teams by clicking on Calendar and then use the drop-down menu to access the live events option.
From here you can then add the Meeting Title and all the details. Next, simply copy the link and insert it into your emails or lead generation campaigns.
2. Group Access for Sales using MS Teams
Whereas Public Access in MS Teams is a great platform for Live events, we recently configured Teams for a client who wanted a Channel to communicate with a specific industry that was going through huge changes with the Pandemic and needed a platform to talk to them.
They invited over 350 customers and 450 prospects into Teams and are delivering weekly updates to an entire industry. They are now seen as thought leaders in the industry and it’s a great way to start conversations that lead to relationships that lead to sales.
You can use the same strategy and use MS Teams to create a platform so that you can talk to your industry.
You could deliver updates on new laws and regulations, industry trends and insights, interview industry thought leaders and invite your customers to talk about their businesses and experiences.
We would, however, warn against overtly selling in these types of communications as the minute the audience believes they are being sold to, they will start to drop out and the Channel will wither.
3. Company Access for Sales Prospects inside MS Teams
In B2B Sales it’s increasingly difficult to reach all the decision-makers in the Sales Process. In many cases they send a “Scout” to find information not available on your website and do all they can to keep Salespeople at a distance throughout the buying process.
What these buyers want is information and in most cases a quote or proposal and when they have it they immediately cease all contact. This can be a huge waste of time and money for the selling organisation as tenders become more and more complicated, needing multiple people in the way of bid teams to respond. If you’re not sure if this is happening to you simply check back through your CRM and you’ll see that many deals stall immediately after the prospect receives the pricing and information they need.
There is no easy way around this however what’s working for our clients is offering limited information up-front and then holding back until the other Decision Makers engage. They do this by re-framing the sales opportunity as a project and using Teams as the “Project Management Portal” to gather the needs of all the “stakeholders”.
This brings the buyers out and allows a controlled release of the information in exchange for engagement. This doesn’t work on every deal however it very quickly “smokes” out the genuine buyers from those just using the Salespeople for pricing.
An additional benefit of this approach is the Sales Team can invite Pre-Sales, operations, delivery teams and aftercare teams to the Teams Channel in the solution forming phase of the sale which can provide a richer sales experience for the customer. This is a great point of differentiation and whilst no sales strategy works every time it’s low cost and easy to try.
Lastly this strategy shouldn’t be applied across the board unless every sales opportunity is large and comes with a bespoke solution. We only implement this for deals above £10k, but you can choose where to set the bar.
4. Inhouse Access for Using Teams on Bids & Tenders
The most common use for MS Teams is the call and video conferencing functions, however, there is much more functionality that can help Sales Teams sell more. MS Teams makes Sales Teams more productive, more focussed and delivers a better user experience which in turn increases productivity.
There are numerous advantages with Teams such as the chat function, which allows us to stay connected without cluttering up our Outlook Inbox. Whether it’s Yammer, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or any of the other O365 products, they can all be accessed and worked on from inside the Teams environment.
If you have bid teams responding to tenders the Bid documents can be created, stored and developed within the Teams environment and Tender Teams can collaborate and even edit the same document simultaneously.
In many cases the Bid creation process can run down to the deadline and when multiple authors are involved which can create time delays as each contributes and updates potentially separate copies of the one document. The Multi author allows uses inside Teams to make edits and additions live and see the document develop as their work colleagues contribute in real time.
Whether it’s Word, Excel, PowerPoint or any of the other O365 products, they can all be accessed and worked on from inside Microsoft Teams.
5. Teams as a Learning Management System
Many companies now acknowledge the tangible benefits of training, coaching and developing their people. Sales Training and Coaching itself has changed and improved over the years, whereas in the past training was in most cases was one-off event, they are now almost always part of a bespoke sales training programme. In order to deliver these programmes software companies have developed SaaS models where companies can create bespoke learning programmes.
There are numerous Learning Management Systems on the market each with some great functionality, however, Microsoft Teams has for most companies all the functionality they will ever need from an (LMS). Furthermore, the beauty of using MS Teams as an LMS is both compelling and simple:
- You are already paying for it with your 0365 Licence
- Your people are already working inside the O365 suite every hour of every day so that’s a great place for learning.
Although there is no one standard in terms of the functionality of an LMS, for most companies an LMS has the capability to, create, document, record, measure, store and deliver training programmes. In practical terms this means:
Create. Document, Record. You can create learning content in OneNote, MS Wiki, MS Paint, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, Stream, MS Whiteboard, Excel, Publisher.
Measure. You can test and measure learning using all of the above and MS Planner and MS Forms.
Store. You can store all your content in either One Drive or SharePoint.
Deliver. You can deliver all your training and coaching using MS Teams and acknowledge achievements via MS Praise.
In addition to the suite of O365 tools there are many additional third-party applications available from inside MS Teams to both enhance and compliment your existing applications. For example, you can connect to
CRM systems – MS Dynamics CRM, Salesforce CRM, NImble, Zoho or iGlobe CRM.
Productivity – Asana, Trello, Jira & Stormflow.
Communications – Survey Monkey, Mail Chimp, Mail Clerk & Text Bot.
There are hundreds of other applications available and the number of these apps including Moodle which is a stand alone LMS that can be connected into your Teams Channel.
We’ve also written on the benefits of using OneNote for Sales Management and Coaching which are an important part of any LMS. We rally like the combined functionality of MS Teams and OneNote as a Coaching platform to help develop Salespeople.
You can break down your Training into competencies and deliver bespoke sessions on specifics like sales prospecting, pipeline management sales closing techniques all from inside your own Sales Playbooks in OneNote. We use our Sales Playbooks with every client and the combination of creating and using OneNote for the Playbook, and delivering them through Teams is really powerful.
6. Recommended Reading
If you would like to discover some of the free templates that we use inside teams then check out our B2B Sales Tools.
Top 9 Hacks Using OneNote for Sales Management
In this article we will cover...
Sales Teams with Sales Playbooks are 33% MORE likely to be high performers with win rates exceeding 50%
Followers of our blog here will know we are big fans of the suite of work tools contained in Microsoft Office. As the marketing says they truly do bring Enterprise-Class tools to Mid Market and SME’s. We wanted to share some practical tips on how we and our clients use OneNote for Sales Management to save time and drive productivity.
In amongst Office 365 is Microsofts digital notebook OneNote which is undoubtedly one of our favourites. It did take some time to understand and learn how to use it and we’re pretty sure that we are still nowhere near using the product to it’s maximum.
Since becoming converts we’ve added the Onetastic Addin which gives us additional functionality and a huge range of Macros that simply supercharge OneNote for Sales Management.
With that said, if you can add any tips that will help us and other OneNote Users then please do so in the comments section at the bottom of this post. So here are the top 9 hacks
1. Note-taking for Sales Meetings
Everyone knows the importance of taking accurate notes during a Sales Meeting with prospects and customers, however, we always found it difficult to remember the questions and steps that we needed to follow in our Sales Process.
In addition to capturing the usual meeting details like attendee names and telephone numbers, we wanted to capture details like the Buyers Primary Sensory Dominance and their Personal DiSC style. All together it was just too much information for us to remember so we created a simple template in OneNote based on a Word Document we’d been using.
In addition to capturing those details we included a visual prompt to help us remember the most important questions and finally, the very last question captures any Next Steps that are agreed. We record these “next steps” using the Outlook Tasks integration inside OneNote which automatically adds this to Task in Outlook.
Most Salespeople may prefer to keep these types of notes inside their CRM and there’s a great article here on how to integrate OneNote with Microsoft Dynamics 365. For Salesforce users you can set up an integration with OneNote via Zapier Integrations here.
You can design your own page for Meeting or Project Notes and save it as a template for easy access every time you need it.
Lastly, it’s possible to use the audio recording function in OneNote to record meetings however we would not recommend this in a Sales Meeting.
PROS OF ONENOTE FOR SALES MEETINGS
We prefer using OneNote because it allows us to take notes freehand and despite our poor attempts at handwriting we can always use the convert to text feature if needed to tidy things up.
In addition to being able to write freehand with the Microsoft pen we also try to use visual note-taking techniques that we know from our sales training is proven to aid memory retention and focus. Everyone is different but we prefer writing notes rather than typing them in a meeting.
The notes not only help us remember what was said and what next steps need to be taken they are great for referring back to when we send a “Thank you for meeting me email” with a summary of the notes and if we need to create a proposal or presentation later in the sales process.
CONS OF ONE NOTE FOR SALES MEETINGS
We suspect the biggest negative will be that unless you are using Dynamics CRM or Salesforce then OneNote may not integrate with your own CRM. That said, I am sure you would be able to cut and paste the notes over into another CRM.
2. Sales Coaching Notes
Coaching Salespeople is arguably more powerful than sales training when it’s done well. One of the key foundations of Sales Coaching is keeping accurate notes for both the coach and the coachee to refer back to. As you would expect this should be cloud-based and is one of the easiest things you can set up.
- Create a Section in OneNote for each Sales Rep that you are coaching. You may be rightly concerned about privacy here as it’s not normal to have sales coaching notes which should be private available for other team members to view. This is easily solved by setting password protection on each section.
- Create a new page inside OneNote and then use a Template for your coaching process. We use the GROW sales coaching model however you can use any model you choose. In our situation where we mostly provide online Sales Coaching we part complete the notes during the coaching session and then finish them immediately at the end of the calls.
Immediately after each sales coaching session, we email a summary of any action points to the coachee so they know what commitments they have made before the next session.
As with the Sales Meeting Notes template, you can design your own page around your sales coaching process and save it as a template for easy access when the next coaching session is due.
3. Sales Performance Reviews
If you’re using OneNote for Sales Management it can easily help you review the individual performance of your Sales Team. Again OneNote Make this easy by using the sections function with password protection.
This can easily be included as an extra page inside the Sales Reps section next to their Sales Coaching notes or if the Coaching is being provided by someone other than the manager then you can either set up a different notebook or a different section within the same notebook.
We typically use Sales Scorecards as a way to measure individual sales performance and this can be recorded inside OneNote or in a separate application with only the actual meeting notes being recorded in OneNote.
Again the main benefits are the ease of use and access for both employees and managers in addition to the security and privacy that OneNote provides.
4. Sales Training with OneNote
Historically Sales Training was conducted via 1 or 2-day events with participants receiving a training manual. With the advent of more Online Sales Training OneNote is a great repository to Store your sales training content. It’s easy to set Sections as Learning Modules and Pages as the Individual lessons. Inside the Lessons or pages, you can add Video, Audio or text-based content with quizzes and questions for each student.
Unlike traditional Sales Training which forces all students to learn at the same pace, OneNote allows us to create Self-paced learning modules which delivers much better learning results. In order to check students are meeting or exceeding learning goals, we integrate surveys and questions using the Microsoft Forms application for each student.
It’s also possible to create individual sales training sessions where you can assign learning content for individual Sales Reps allowing you to provide a more targeted learning approach. OneNote allows you to track and measure learning, and provide feedback on an individual basis to students.
Once you have created your Sales Training Lessons as a page in OneNote simply save the page as a Template and you can then insert this into any Sales Reps personal training when required.
A secondary training application if you’re using OneNote for Sales Management is the ability to use the full functionality to create onboarding programmes for new Sales Team members. The main benefit of using OneNote in this case would be the ability to record and document so many different types of styles of content in one location for easy access.
Once you’ve created your Notebook you can easily share Notebooks with colleagues online.
5. Using OneNote as CRM
Whilst we wouldn’t recommend using OneNote as a CRM application it can be. You can download a Sales Template from Auscomp which is based on the Kanban or card-based system, and whilst it doesn’t have the full functionality of a regular CRM, it works well for those who want to keep everything inside OneNote.
What’s much more useful in our opinion is to use OneNote for what we would describe as “sales projects”. For us, these are typically large engagements that require some form of customisation and project management. These projects usually require multiple meetings with multiple decision-makers and additional support from contacts on our side.
In our case, we use OneNote inside a SharePoint site within the MS Teams environment that we create for client projects. Teams serves as a great comms platform and we use OneNote for the Note taking and sharing.
For Sales Opportunities that are not yet Customers but still require lots of notes and a degree of project planning, we use OneNote with sections added for Emails – Linked to Outlook Inbox. This allows us to forward emails relating to the opportunity from inside Outlook.
Contacts Linked to the Contacts in Outlook. This allows us to add contact details from Outlook that we need to share with our internal team working on the project.
Meetings linked to the Calendar function in Outlook. This allows us to insert future meetings from Outlook that may require some internal planning.
6. OneNote To-Do List Template
There are numerous free To Do templates inside OneNote which you can use or you can create your own which we have. We created a To-Do section with pages inside that are linked to the Tasks section in Outlook.
From Outlook we can send all Tasks to this page where we add them to a Prioritised To-Do Dashboard before assigning an owner, deadline and categorisation. This allows our whole team to have a single view of the current Workflow whilst still allowing users to work on the original Tasks that were sent from Outlook.
The four sections in the main dashboard with examples of Tasks we use are:
CRISIS: URGENT / IMPORTANT
PRODUCTIVITY: NOT URGENT / IMPORTANT
DISTRACTION: URGENT / NOT IMPORTANT
WASTE: NOT URGENT / NOT IMPORTANT
7. Journaling with OneNote.
Daily Journaling is a powerful tool that helps Salespeople become more productive, set goals, learn through reflection and serves as a great all round personal development tool.
Most importantly journaling helps with Cognitive Processing and improves overall mental well being. In fact many people say that journaling changes their life.
Although not always popular every personal development guru recommends keeping a daily journal. Journals come in many forms and what’s most important is choosing the format that works for you.
The best journal we’ve come across is by the Sales Journal company however we have developed our own shorter journal which takes between 5 and 10 minutes to complete every morning which seems to work better for Salespeople.
8. Sales Team Meeting Agenda
Lastly the easiest and most common task for using OneNote for Sales Management is for note taking during a Weekly or Monthly Sales Team Meeting. As with every other task using OneNote for Sales Management we create a simple Agenda template which we can recreate every meeting with One click.
In addition to Note Taking we recommend recording every meeting in order that you obviously have a record of the meeting, but additionally, when members of the Sales Team are absent on holiday or sick there is a recording they can easily access to get ensure they don’t miss anything.
9. Sales Playbooks
We’ve definitely saved the best to last here because OneNote is just an amazing tool for creating, delivering and building Sales Playbooks. Whilst many playbooks are still static documents OneNote provides a live document that can be consistently accessed and updated by as many or as few people as you want.
All of the Tools and templates we’ve highlighted in this post can reside inside your OneNote Sales Playbook which makes the user experience even better.
Our OneNote Sales Playbooks are hosted inside MS Teams where we have dedicated Teams for each of our clients and each Team as their own customised playbook.
In fact when you combine MS Teams, OneNote, MS Forms, you have everything you need to create your own Learning Management System and given the cost of some of the LMS platforms this is a great way for smaller and mid market companies to enter the LMS & Sales Enablement world at a much lower price point.
10. Recommended Reading
Get the Best Sales Playbook in the World
Designed & Built in OneNote for Sales Managers
The Best Online Sales Training Courses with Live Coaching
1. Online Sales Training Courses
We believe we have the best online sales courses because we’re different and here’s why:
- Everything we teach, we actually do as part of Klozers own sales strategies. This means we have a deep understanding and not just text book theories.
- Each sales training course is live. With interactive exercises, we deliver an immersive learning experience.
- Our training includes work based learning which means you are assigned practical tasks and sales skills to practice as part of your every day sales role, in order that you learn while you are doing.
Please note: we would never encourage you to provide your products and services for free, and in the same vein we do not provide free sales training.
Nothing in life that is worth anything is free.
How much does online sales training cost?
Online sales training costs start from free and can rise up to $15,000 per month. The cost varies based on how many people are required to be trained, how much customisation the training content requires, and how much online support the attendees require throughout the training programme.
2. Online Sales Training Course
We have the best online sales courses available which cover all the sales skills required for Professional B2B selling. Our sales courses each include relevant modules on sales skills from how to attract customers to sales presentations through to how to close sales . Some modules are common across more than one course, whilst others are unique to specific courses.
The content can be modified to meet the specific needs of your sales team. In addition to the training on sales techniques, our coaches are very much hands on, and can work with you to develop your value proposition, sales strategies and the planning and execution thereof.
- Telesales Training Course
Contrary to what most people believe, the Telephone is still one of the most powerful sales prospecting tools available. With more Salespeople working from home this training course is more important than ever to keep sales reps both busy and productive.
Historically this training course was most popular with entry level sales professionals, however, this course is a great refresher for experienced Business Development Executives and Account Managers who spend all, or part of their time working from home.
Much more than an old fashioned cold calling course the training covers the core Telephone sales skills concepts of:
- Identifying Potential Buyers
- Sales Messaging that Wins
- Creating a Sales Mindset
- Live Calling Session 1 and Role Playing
- Live Calling Session 2 and Role Playing
Please note the Live calling is a combination of outbound calling by the Trainer so you can see and hear in real time what Telesales is, and there is also time set aside for participants to make live calls whilst being coached from the course leader.
For companies looking to develop a full inbound sales methodology, we are the only sales training company with expertise at both inbound and outbound lead generation.
- Consultative Selling Skills Training Course
Our Consultative sales skills course has been our best seller for the past 8 years. Revised and updated, this course is a must have for everyone in B2B sales.
The training course helps participants control and structure every sales conversation in a way that helps buyers uncovers their own personal reasons for buying, which are always more powerful than the Salespersons reasons.
This methodology is always popular with Non Selling professionals such as IT Professionals, Engineers, Professional Services, Consultants, Software Engineers, Project Managers, Accountants & Architects who don’t want to sound “Salesy” when in front of prospects.
The course covers the core concepts of Consultative selling which includes:
- Modern Selling Sales Skills
- The Consultative Sales Process
- Uncovering Value
- Human Behaviour
- Selling Through Service & Winning Repeat Business
- Building Trust
- Sales Pipelines & Selling Process
- Setting Sales Goals
- Key Account Management Training Course
If your business is typical then 70-80% of next years revenues will come from this years customers. It’s also true that your customers are your competitors targets so without Professional Account Management these important clients may leave.
The course helps participants identify and build relationships with Key Stakeholders across the clients business and find and target new revenue opportunities within the account. Most course participants are either Account Managers, Relationship Managers, Technical Account Managers and Account Directors.
Our Key Account Management Training includes modules on:
- Understanding Key Accounts
- Segmenting & Defining Key Accounts
- Planning for Key Accounts
- Creating Key Account Plans
- Sales Management Training Course
Sales Managers are the glue that holds sales teams together. With many Sales Managers carrying personal Sales Targets their time is more valuable than ever.
Our Sales Management Training covers the core topics of:
- Sales Bench-marking
- Sales Improvement Planning
- Sales Performance Management
- Coaching Sales Winners
- Sales Management Skills
We deliver online sales training via self-paced learning and supported with or without live training and coaching.
We supply each of the above types of programme, however, we believe we have the best online sales training because of the learning methodology, or learning style we use which is called Work Based Learning.
Please read on to discover why this is important to you.
3. How to Book the Best Online Sales Training
Pricing on all our courses and details on how to book can be found via the B2B Sales Training Courses
4. Online Sales Training for Sales Teams
Depending on your requirements we have a number of options available to deliver online sales training to your sales force as follows:
- Online Sales Training for Individuals – purchase individual licenses for less than 5 Salespeople hosted on our platform.
- Online Sales Training for Teams – we offer a discounted rate for multiple licenses of our training content to teams with a minimum of 5 Salespeople hosted on our platform.
- Online Sales Training for Teams – purchase Team licenses and host on your own company platform
5. Online Sales Training Certification
Unlike most online training which is theory based, all our training courses follow the Work Based Learning methodology which as yet has no recognised certifying body.
All our training courses are Self-Certified and we provide Certificates to participants on successful completion of their training programme.
In addition to our Training Certificates Participants can include details of their Training on their Linkedin profile as shown below:
6. Sales Training for Beginners
Our Online Sales Training for Beginners course is a mixture of self-paced and instructor -led training that covers the core concepts of selling business to business.
This Beginners Training course is suitable for the following:
- Graduates
- People moving into new sales roles
- Marketing teams who need to understand the basics of selling
- Entrepreneurs
- Startup Founders
This course covers the core modules of Basic Selling:
- Understanding Sales
- Everything you Need to Know Before Talking to Customers Part 1
- Everything you Need to Know Before Talking to Customers Part 2
- Winning Your First Sale
7. Sales Training Plans
In order to deliver a successful sales development programme we typically start by creating a bespoke plan for your company. Many of our Corporate clients have their own Learning & Development departments who can create and generate long term training plans for their sales teams. For those companies that don’t have that capability we can offer a bespoke service where we:
- Identify the core sales competencies required for each sales role
- Map the competencies against the learning objectives in our training modules
- Create bespoke training plans and assessment programmes to deliver, record and assess participants
Our goal is to deliver the best Online Sales Training experience that can be delivered by a combination of face to face, self-paced online, and instructor led online sessions.
In addition to supporting your companies future growth and sales goals, your sales development plan should enhance the sales career and personal development of the participants.
Our sales trainers are very much hands on, and strike a balance between allowing participants learn an their own pace, and pushing them to meet the sales goals of the business.
8. Online Sales Training Portal
Our Online Sales Training is delivered in a secure and stable platform online via Microsoft Teams. Individuals are invited into Teams and based on their requirements are assigned training modules to complete based on their personal Learning Objectives and any additional Objectives determined by their Line Manager.
To avoid learning fatigue all our courses are broken down into modules which are between 1 and 2 hours long. In addition we have short modules on selling skills which are between 10 and 30 minutes long.
The sales skills modules we provide are:
- Advanced Questioning Skills
- Controlling the Sales Conversation
- Handling Stalls & Objections
- Referrals & Testimonials
- Online Sales Presentation Skills
- Whiteboard Selling
- Building Relationships
- Value Creation
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator/Social Selling
- Dealing with difficult customers
- Cross Selling & Upselling
- Negotiation Skills
The Teams Portal provides the flexibility to configure the Channel in different ways which include the options of:
- Email, Chat, Video and Conference Calling
- Secure storage of documents
- Provision of pre and post training surveys
- Provision of CRM if clients have no CRM
- B2B Sales Templates, Tools & Frameworks
9. Online Sales Training vs Sales Coaching
One of the most common questions we are asked by sales leaders is “What’s the difference between Sales Training and Sales Coaching” and why is it important. Training and coaching are two different things, that result in two different outcomes. In order to answer the question it’s important first to define what we mean by sales training and sales coaching.
We are not claiming our own definitions are either the industry standard, or the same as other service providers, however we do know from experience that our definitions make it easier for our clients to better understand their own needs which is the most important thing.
What is Sales Training?
Sales Training is the transfer of knowledge or skills.
What is Sales Coaching?
Sales Coaching supports the practical application of training (knowledge + skills) in the field.
At Klozers we define Sales Training as the “transfer of knowledge”, and the primary outcome from any transfer of knowledge should always be an increase in learning, education and understanding. There are of course secondary outcomes which are similar to the outcomes from coaching, but it’s important we understand the difference between the two.
This is why every training course regardless of the subject matter clearly articulates what the “learning outcomes” will be after the course, and usually do not reference any form of performance improvement.
In the western world over 90% of jobs requiring manual labour no longer exist, and we are now what we call a knowledge economy. Salespeople are paid for their knowledge and skills not manual labour, therefore for every Sales Person, knowledge is power, which is why Sales Training and Learning outcomes are so important.
Once we acknowledge that Sales Training is the mechanism by which we transfer knowledge, and that knowledge is power, it’s equally important to understand that in Sales more than any other subject, this knowledge is worthless unless the Sales Person takes the knowledge, and apply it in the field with prospects and customers.
Without this practical application of the new sales knowledge in the field, then the sales person risks being the smartest sales person in the office, where there are no customers. In most cases a sale never takes place unless a Sales Person has undertaken some form of activity/behaviour/action and this activity is where any new knowledge from training needs to be applied.
The same rules apply for inside sales, with the only difference being the channels with which they are communicating with the prospects/customers. If for example an Inside Sales Person attends a training course on Communication Skills, then unless they apply these skills on either the telephone, email or social media, the training is worthless.
We define Sales Coaching however as “supporting the practical application knowledge in the field”, and the outcome from coaching should always be an increase in skills, confidence and performance.
The main thing that sales training often lacks, and this is not a criticism, more a practical restriction, is that training cannot cover every possible scenario that a sales person will encounter when interacting with a prospect or customer. Those scenarios and equally important the context of each scenario, are what takes classroom sales training and turns it into Boardroom results.
10. The Importance of the Difference Between Training & Coaching
The best way to explain the importance of coaching would be to use the analogy of Golf. If we attend a 1, 2 or 3 day golf training session with Tiger Woods there is no doubt as one of the worlds greatest golfers Tiger Woods would be capable of delivering excellent training.
The course might cover things like the correct stance when addressing the ball, the correct grip and the optimum swing, and there is absolutely no doubt the course attendees would have some very specific and valuable learning outcomes.
What Tiger Woods cannot cover is the practical application of that knowledge next week when you are on the local course and you tried to change your grip, but because it was new to you it felt uncomfortable and for the first 9 holes, your new stance, grip and swing had left you 10 over par.
In these circumstances the golfer is most likely to revert back to his original stance, grip and swing and then might complete the next 9 holes on 5 over par which is his norm. No performance improvement takes place because there was no coach to support with the practical implementation of the new knowledge that the golfer had.
Furthermore, the golfer/sales person is typically left feeling frustrated and disappointed as he knows for sure that Tiger Woods had delivered great content in his course, and realises that he just does not have the ability to implement that knowledge.
11. Online Sales Coaching
Online Sales coaching supports the practical application of knowledge by support and providing context for the many different scenarios that a sales person will encounter with a prospect/customer.
Again if we go back to the Golf analogy. The coach would be able to help the Golfer understand why the knowledge that Tiger had delivered in the training course was not working, for example wind, ground conditions, course type and layout, club and balls – there are hundreds of external variables, never mind the internal variables such as the golfers mindset, belief system and attitudes that would affect the performance.
This is absolutely the same when any sales person goes into a meeting with a prospect/customer, there are hundreds of variables both external and internal that affect the outcome and performance. The role of the sales coach is to support sales reps in their endeavour to overcome these challenges.
In practice, this means the sales coach is there to support sales reps and the sales team, implement any new sales strategy, sales skills, selling process, and sales techniques in the field.
Another important difference between sales training and sales coaching is the style. Modern training has thankfully moved away from a simple one way discussion telling people what to do. Games, exercises and good facilitation that engages the attendees should all be included, however the perception of training can often be negative and many attendees have mentally switched off before they get in the room/on the course.
They may have good reason for this based on a past negative experience, but either way the perception is not always positive and often the perception is related to the style. What we mean by this is the perception of sales training for many people is one of telling and from our own experience nobody especially sales people like to be told.
Coaching however is the opposite and is a question based approach to help the sales person discover for themselves the answers. That process of discovery and reflection is very powerful because it transfers ownership of the answer to the problems to the sales person. When the sales person comes up with the answers they then mentally own the answer which make them much more believable to the sales person.
12. Work Based Learning
Our online sales courses utilise the concepts of Work Based Learning as many companies and Salespeople no longer have the time available to dedicate days or even hours to training. The modern workplace demands that training not only fits in around the schedule of those involved, but that it also generates some form of value in addition to learning as an outcome.
As it sounds work based learning is focussed around learning and activities that are not only relevant to the job, they are based on sales activities that are the job. As human beings we predominantly learn and master skills by doing and repetition.
The Learning theorists claim we learn 70% by doing, 20% by watching and 10% by listening. Whilst I am sure these figures are not accurate, they are most certainly a good yardstick for any training programme, as the focus is on the learners actually doing the activities and behaviours which are vital for every Sales Person.
Although Work based learning is very different to traditional classroom based training it is still essential for the sales people to have some form of reflection, because like the golfer when they go out to apply the new learning not everything works first time in the field.
This learning by doing, and yes sometimes it will involve learning by failing, is by far the most powerful way for any human being to learn and master new skills. We also believe work based learning is now more important than ever, as sales people simply do not have the time to be away from either their desks or the field for days at a time in the way that traditional training dictates.
13. Learning & Accountability
While Online Sales Training and Online Sales Coaching are all good there is one vital ingredient that every organisation needs in order for any form of sales improvement to take place and this is Accountability.
Without any form of accountability the Salespeople choose what to do, and when they will do it and in most cases this can be detrimental to the business. Sales Trainers and Coaches are neither in charge nor responsible for the sales people.
This must come from the companys’ own Sales Leadership, as the Sales Trainer can tell the Salespeople what to do, the Sales Coach can show the Sales people what to do, however only the Sales Leaders in the company can tell them what to do. Whilst we absolutely love sales people unfortunately in many organizations Salespeople are not held accountable and therefore choose for themselves what to do, how to do it, and when it is done. Again, in most cases this is not what is best for the business.
Developing a culture of accountability is in our opinion a vital ingredient for any business as quite simply without accountability nothing gets done. Like most things in life that are worthwhile there is no magic wand for Accountability and it takes planning, persistence and patience, but the end results are transformational both for the business and the people, as once the culture starts to take hold people are empowered and happier, because with accountability comes responsibility.
This also helps remove decision making bottle necks, and often the burden from senior people in the business, as the responsibilities are passed down the chain to newly empowered employees. Sales results are dependent on strong sales leadership and strong management. Not every decision will be popular and not every sales person will embrace the new culture.
In the book ‘Good to Great’, Jim Collins talks about employees as people on a bus. The people not only need to be on the right bus, but they need to be in the right seat for the bus to successfully reach its destination. Sometimes people who get on the bus at the start of the journey are neither in the right seat or on the right bus.
Sales Leadership is a continuous drive for sales improvement that leaves no stone unturned and in some cases this may involve asking people to leave our bus as they no longer have the right skill set, behaviours or mindset that the business needs to move forward.
Please don’t misunderstand us, we believe that a business has a duty to develop and grow every employee, however when those employees make it clear by their actions that they have no desire to develop and grow then it is negligent of the business to ignore this and not take action.
14. How we Create Accountability Online
We create accountability online by including Line Managers in the learning process. On sign up participants are emailed a choice of Learning Objectives related to the course they have chosen. A selection of additional learning objectives are also provided and Learners can also add their own learning objectives all of which must be approved by their line manager.
By including Line Managers in the initial learning process we introduce Accountability. Line Managers are asked to verify the work based assignments and help assess whether the initial learning objectives have been met.
Coaching for Entrepreneurs to Fast Track Sales
Sales Teams with Sales Playbooks are 33% MORE likely to be high performers with win rates exceeding 50%
1. Executive Sales Coaching for Entrepreneurs
If you have a great product or service but still aren’t getting the revenues you deserve, then it’s important that you take action and change in order to grow your business.
Our Exec Sales Coaching for Entrepreneurs programme will support you through the changes to make sure you get the success you are looking for.
Most Entrepreneurs choose us because of our ability to drive new growth which is important, but there is much more to sales than simply finding new customers.
In order to build your business you need to be able to retain and grow those customers.
Entrepreneur Coaching Services
Our Entrepreneur Coaching services are a support mechanism to help you through the inevitable highs and lows of starting and running your own business. Our coaches provide proven strategies to help you grow and hold you accountable to implementing those strategies in your business.
Please check out the video below before making any decision.
2. Scaling Up SMEs
We offer a premium coaching service which we accept is not for everyone, however, before making any decision please watch the video below on Sales Strategy. If you still choose not to engage us then you will at least have discovered a Strategy to grow your business.
Hopefully after watching this video you will understand the value we place on being able to deliver real results to you and your business. We aim to demonstrate best practice in everything we do.
What stage is your business?
We work with Entrepreneurs from those still building their value proposition and proving their product market fit, through to those who already have a successful product or service and are ready to scale. Mistakes at any stage along the way can cost thousands, and set you back years. Our experienced team can help you transform your sales and make it the differentiator in the market place. If you want to grow your business, sales has to be a priority?
Business Coach vs Sales Coach
Although we do run a successful business ourselves, we do not claim to be Business Coaches or offer Business Coaching. The majority of our clients are business owners, but they don’t come to us because they can’t run a business. Far from it, they are often very good at running a business, however the Sales component in the business has never taken off, and rather than continue to struggle, they take action by engaging with us to grow their business.
Many business owners come from what we describe as an product/service background, meaning they are experts at the product or service they provide. In most cases they have had no formal or informal support on sales and marketing, and this at some stage, can begin to hold their business back.
As the business owner, the buck stops with them as they are ultimately responsible for the sales revenues in the business, and as a coach we act as there trusted advisor on everything connected to sales and marketing.
Business Coaching vs Sales Coaching
Whilst we are happy to support and advise, we do not provide business coaching in the traditional sense. Our coaching business is far more focussed on sales and marketing to help you grow your business. There is, however, a cross over, as we often advise on issues such as the business strategy, sales and marketing strategy, and people strategy within the sales department.
There is typically lots of support available for business owners to help them with running a business. Good sales and marketing support is less common, but arguably more important.
The analogy we would use is one of a Doctor and Consultant Your business coach and business coaching in general is like a Doctor for your business and can advise on generic issues. A sales coach and sales coaching is much more akin to the specialist Consultant that you turn to for a specific requirement.
Small Business Owners
Small Business owners often have different challenges as they constantly juggle and multitask between trying to win new business and delivering from an operational standpoint. Whilst running a small business can be very rewarding many business owners discover along the way that they have only given themselves a low paid job with all the headaches of business ownership.
Suddenly giving up a successful career doesn’t seem as appealing as they first thought, motivation starts to wain and it can become an ever decreasing circle.
Many spend too many hours at work and miss out on important family life. This is usually unsustainable and finding a healthy balance between work and family commitments is important.
In nearly every case, the stress and anxiety associated with running a business can be alleviated with more orders. We have found winning new business and building a successful sales machine are the key to success, and the best cure for stress and anxiety.
We help business owners develop proven marketing systems and processes that deliver self qualified leads consistently. The future of your business affects your own personal future and as your coach we are here to help you build the future you want.
3. Individual Sales Coaching
This programme provides dedicated coaching for entrepreneurs to help them transform their sales teams and increase their sales growth. You will be allocated one of our business coaches each of who is an expert at growing sales.
There is no quick fix or magic wand solution to improve revenue, however, there is a systematic & process driven approach that will improve your sales results.
No two individuals are the same and we work with you to ensure that every solution is tailored for you, your people and your business.
Many of our clients come from a Technical or Operational background and have no prior experience of sales. Our Role as your Business Coach is to both support and challenge you through the changes that you will be making to improve your organisations overall Sales capabilities and effectiveness.
We do this by using a combination of coaching, but where necessary, this is backed up by our training.
So whether you’ve 10 weeks experience or 10 years, we’ve got everything you need.
4. Who Should Join Coaching for Entrepreneurs?
Our Online Sales Coaching is exclusively for Founders & Business Owners who want to make changes at a Strategic level to their sales organisation.
*Business Owners & Entrepreneurs
*Chief Executive Officers
*Managing Directors
*Company Founders
5. Typical Sales Problems We Fix
*No Long Term Growth Strategy
*No Sales Structure or Process
*Roller Coaster revenues
*Salespeople not engaged and low productivity
*Long Sales Cycles
*No Selling system
*Good Salespeople leave and poor Salespeople stay
6. What do I need to join the Coaching for Entrepreneurs Programme?
This programme is designed for Entrepreneurs and Leaders who are committed to taking action that will systematically improve their Sales Strategy, Structure, Process, Management, People, Technology and Client Management.
We believe in being completely upfront and honest with our clients so please ensure this programme is right for you.
You must have the authority and budget to make changes necessary. The budget will vary from literally zero, to hundreds of thousands of pounds and will completely depend on your situation.
As an example, you may require to hire new or additional Salespeople, or you may require a new CRM system.
It’s possible to spend no money at all and “bootstrap” your business, however, you will still need the authority to make the changes necessary to increase your sales.
Your biggest investment will be the time and energy you spend thinking and working on Sales. If you are not engaged in the sales function of your business it’s unlikely we can help you. That doesn’t mean you have to be selling, but you do have to be actively leading.
It’s impossible to get the huge increases in Sales Growth that you are looking for on your own so you will need to engage the team around you. We can help with this, however, your Leadership style may need to change in order for you to do this.
Lastly, and probably most importantly, you must be coachable. This means you will need to have an open mind, and on occasion, you will need to try things that you don’t believe will work. Our job isn’t to agree with you, we are here to challenge as well as support you.
7. Strategic Solutions vs Tactical Solutions
This Coaching programme is focussed on Strategic solutions that will dramatically increase your revenues and help you grow and scale your business.
Tactical sales solutions are important and may be relevant for you, however, they will only transition your business to the next level. Our Business Coaching programme is designed to radically transform your sales and move them up 10 levels.
As an example you may decide that your salespeople need training and you may be correct. Training is however only a tactical move and needs to be rooted in your overall Sales Improvement Plan.
8. How does the Coaching Programme Work?
Most Leaders come to us with specific challenges which we incorporate into our coaching programme. Solving these challenges may be the only thing you need us for, however, we have a process which often uncovers other areas for growth. We are happy to just work on your challenges or work on the business as a whole. This is how we dramatically ramp up your growth and scale your business. After an initial consultation we assign a coach to you who will help you through the following process:
Step 1. Benchmarking & Assessing
It’s impossible to build a plan without know your starting point so we spend time benchmarking your sales organisation against Best Practice. This is done via a combination of surveys, interviews, data and conversations with you, on your personal and business goals. The more hard data we have from you the better, as this will help us both make smarter decisions. If you have no data we will advise you on which data you will need to start collecting and which systems you should be using to collect the data.
Step 2. Build a Sales Improvement Plan
From our initial benchmarking and discovery in Step 1 we will work with you to create a bespoke SIP (Sales Improvement Plan). This plan is the vision for the Sales component of your business. The plan will include a Short Term Sales Strategy (0-12 months) and a long term Strategy (12 months +). Our goal is to identify the “Big Bets” from your products or services portfolio and create a long term sales strategy to supersede the short term strategy as quickly as possible, and we explain why in the programme.
Step 3. Easy Wins (Short Term Sales Strategy)
From your SIP we will work with you to find the easy wins that will first generate new revenue and secondly build confidence in you and your team. The timeline is wholly dependent on you and your team which means that we can go as fast or as slow as your circumstances dictate. The more time that you and your team spend working your Sales Plan the quicker you will see results. The usual timeline for the early wins ranges from 1 month to 3 months.
Step 4. Big Bets (Long Term Sales Strategy)
Your “Big Bets” are your most profitable and easy to deliver products or services that we will focus on as part of the Long Term sales strategy for your business. We will build everything around these in the first instance however, your Big Bets may change from year to year dependent on your business requirements and the market.
Your coach will work with you to bring everything together into a one page action sheet (available via our online system) with powerful goals to ensure you and your team get the sales results you deserve.
Step 5. Action Planning
Action planning is an important part of the process as it helps hold everyone accountable to the vision, actions and goals that have been agreed. Often, accountability causes huge problems and where possible we recommend you make accountability a priority alongside your business values.
Step 6. Execution
We work with you to execute and deliver on your Sales Improvement Plan. We expect to complete steps 1 – 6 in the first 3 months of working with you which allows us 6 months to work with you in the Execution phase and help you reach the goals you have set yourself.
When you hire us our goal as your coach is to be as flexible as possible and we do whatever it takes to get results. Please note there are often multiple sessions involved in each of the above steps. Each session is planned in advance and you will be provided with an agenda for every session.
10. Sales Coaching Portal
Our Coaching tools and resources are designed to be accessible when you need them, not simply when we have a call scheduled. In order to achieve this we have created a secure and robust Coaching Platform inside Microsoft Teams. From inside Teams we can:
- Chat
- Conference Call
- Video
- Create & Track Plans
- Work on Sales Opportunities
- Store & share documents
- Coaching Guides
- Training & Videos
- Templates, Guides & Tools
Please note you will require a Microsoft Outlook email account (Free) to access the coaching platform. If you are using Office 365 you can sign in via this account.
11. Reviews from Coaching Clients
“Klozers helped our business achieve great results. Their due care and attention to focus not only on the sales process and execution but to also consider and hence incorporate business and marketing strategy into the wider planning helped us to realise our potential as a team and as a business.
Personally, Iain was able to coach me very well on what my focus should be as a business manager and I would highly recommend him and his team to other businesses.”
Richard Matthews – Commercial Director LettingRef
“Iain is an outstanding sales trainer and coach. He has played a crucial role in helping us develop a thoroughly professional and industry leading sales and customer service team. Having worked with us for two years, he has become our trusted advisor on all matters related to our sales strategy. His passion for what he does is infectious and I would highly recommend having a conversation with Iain to see if he could help your company’s sales performance.“
Steve Tigar – CEO Money Dashboard
12. What does the Exec Coaching Programme Include?
Programme Contents
- Benchmarking & Assessments
- Bespoke Sales Improvement Plan
- Grow your business – Short & Long Term Sales Strategy
- Online access to Sales Coaching & Training Content
- 2 x Coaching Calls per month
- Unlimited chat, email and phone support in between calls
Applications to join our Exec Sales Coaching programme are available from joanne @klozers.com
7 Best Practices in Training for Telesales | Training Course
1. Training for Telesales
You may remember the ad campaign from Levi “When the world zigs you zag” which encouraged people to be different and draw on the rebellious spirit in them. Well in a world where there seems to be an app for everything it might be time for you to pull out the old fashioned Telephone and make some sales calls.
Get full details on our Telephone Sales Training Course.
2. Successful Telesales Strategies
Cold Calling might be dead, however, the telephone definitely isn’t.
Recently one of our clients was thrilled to have a buyer call back after we helped compile, one simple introductory email.
This call led to a meeting and 3 months down the line a £60,000 contract.
Using the telephone to generate demand is still possible, but we need to be much smarter and much more targeted, than simply working our way through a spreadsheet.
Simply smiling and dialing is not a recipe for success in the modern business world.
3. Does Cold Calling Work?
- 69% of buyers accepted calls from salespeople in the last 12 months.
- 71% say they are happy to talk with salespeople when they are looking for ideas to improve business results.
- 60% of IT Buyers want a cold-call from salespeople first.
It may not be fashionable, and it may not be your own personal favourite, but nevertheless, it is the world’s number one Sales Tool.
The telephone has been abused, misused and the weapon of choice for some of the worst sales strategies and sales techniques, hence the words Telephone and Sales are now not always popular bed mates.
In many cases Inside Sales teams never receive formal training for telesales and more often than not they are working ad-hoc based on one persons experience.
However:
It is not the fault of Direct Mail we get flooded with junk mail.
It is not the fault of email that people choose to send spam.
It is not the fault of Social Media that people choose to be rude, offensive and keyboard warriors.
Therefore it is not the fault of the telephone that people have made, and most of us have received, some lousy sales calls.
4. Definitions Training for Telesales
Before we go on it’s important to first establish some common ground on the basics of telesales training.
4.1 WHAT IS A COLD CALL?
A Cold Call is when you telephone a complete stranger who is not expecting your call.
4.2 WHAT IS A WARM CALL?
A warm call is when you call a complete stranger who is expecting your call because you may have emailed, or sent something in advance telling them you would call.
The success rate of Warm Calling jumps to 40% with a personal introduction to a buyer and will be anything between 3 and 40% when you send information in advance, but this is largely dependent on what you send and your value proposition.
In some industries, cold calling has an amazing conversion rate but less so in others, so like many other things the context is important.
5. Inside Sales Training
Aaron Ross’s great book Predictable Revenue will help you understand how to set up an Inside Sales team and is a great starting point, however, most of our clients quickly find there are some missing links in the translation from selling American style, to the culture and nuance of the UK.
It doesn’t help that Inside Sales is such a tough job to do and an even tougher one to manage.
Many of us have had more than one negative experience with a cold call where the caller was less than professional and this unfortunately continues, as so few people have the necessary skills to make an effective telephone call or the appetite to learn.
When we Cold Call we run the risk of damaging our brand, and this is where training and coaching have their place.
Modern technology has killed the art of voice communication. Auto-dialers, Text, Instant Messaging and Email are now the preferred form of business communication and for many picking up the phone is the last option. In our personal lives, we are also happy to text or message our family and friends rather than phone.
This is further echoed by younger generations who have moved completely away from voice communication which ironically is often the least used App on the modern telephone.
The way companies buy has changed and evolved over the last 40 years, which has forced us to change the way we communicate and sell. This has cast a question mark over the effectiveness, or lack of it from Cold Calling.
Like everything the best way to get real results from cold calling are by providing effective training for telesales which is then supported by on ongoing coaching and practice.
By practice and repetition we mean making at least 1000 calls to practice and hone your telephone selling skills. Most people, however, don’t want to make 1000 calls, especially when they are learning when each call can quickly turn into a car crash.
Now more than ever, we all seek instant gratification and when we are making cold calls, that very rarely happens.
6. Marketing vs Telesales
Many marketers will claim that Cold Calling is not the most effective use of your Salespeople’s time and they have the statistics to prove this. Where this falls down, however, is that marketing is reactive which means we have to wait on a prospect finding a blog, a white paper or a video and then hope they respond or contact us.
Sales is a pro-active sport and if there is a C – Level buyer that fits our prospect profile why wouldn’t we call them?
Why would we wait on them finding the content that marketing created?
Marketing should be providing the 80-90% of new leads to the business, however, Cold Calling also has a place; as a high impact, tactical sales tool reserved for targeting high-value prospects.
7. Best Practice in Telesales
7.1 SYSTEMS & PROCESS
If you don’t prepare your call list till the day you plan to make your calls you will never make any calls. Preparation needs to be done in advance and don’t be too proud to use scripts. Everyone laughs at the scripted young servers in McDonald’s but multiply the effect of “would you like fries with that” across thousands of sales interactions every hour of every day and the additional revenue this creates is staggering.
If you are unsure what to say you need to first develop your Value Proposition and after that, you can feed this into your opening script. Please note only the opening should be scripted because when you use Consultative Selling, you will be asking questions and the prospects answers will never fit with your script.
7.2 KNOW YOUR NUMBERS
You must keep track of all your activity such as number of calls, number of voicemails, number of times the gatekeeper blocks you, number of time you get to speak with a prospect etc. By week 2 you should know for every x calls you make, you will get one appointment or sale. This will help to motivate you when times are tough. You can download a free copy of our Sales Call Tracker sheet from the Sales Tools section which will provide the basics to get you started.
7.3 MAKE A PLAN
You should develop a call plan with the best times to call, the questions you will ask and the outcomes you want.
- Cold calling is 70% more successful on a Wednesday
- Buyers are 16% more likely to answer at 10 am
- The best talk to listen to ration is 55% to 45% (personally I think this is too much talking)
- Follow up emails get a 62% open rate
- Post call emails should be a minimum of 75 and a maximum of 100 words.
7.4 PRACTICE
Never practice on your best list of prospects, instead, take the pressure off yourself and practice on people that you have no chance of selling to. Keep your best prospect list ready till you have practiced and have developed your skills.
If you have important callbacks to make in the morning always do 2-3 warm-up calls first, to get you in the zone.
Work out in advance how you will handle sales objections so that you don’t get stuck when the prospect raises any, and they always do.
7.5 EXECUTE
Make your calls consistently and never rush. The goal is normally to set an appointment, not a competition on who makes the most calls. You must choose quality over quantity.
Even if you are trying to sell, do not, because they will smell what we call your sales breath down the telephone and it’s hugely off-putting. Never use features and benefit statements as they remind people of 1970’s car salesmen, instead use intelligent questions to engage them and gather information.
If you are selling “appointments” there is nothing more demoralising for a Salesperson than to attend an appointment arranged by telesales only to find the prospect isn’t a prospect at all. Agree with your colleagues in advance what the prospect must say or do to qualify for an appointment.
No matter how good you are every day people will be rude and even abusive. They are only words and they will never hurt you so never make the mistake of responding to them.
Kill them with kindness, protect your brand and yourself and simply say “Next Please”.
7.6 RECORD & DEBRIEF
Depending on the laws of whatever country you are reading this article in, it may be possible to record your calls. Normally recording is legal if you tell the other person and this happens all the time for inbound calls, however, it will kill your conversion ratio if you have to declare you are recording on an outbound call so only do it if it’s legal.
That said recording your calls and listening back to them is a great way to debrief a call and learn for the next one.
7.7 REPEAT
Repeat, In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he talks about the need for 10,000 hours of deliberate practice before you can become proficient at anything.
There has been a rush of studies to try and disprove this and you may not need 10,000 hours of telesales practice, but, you will need months to perfect and hone your skills. Repetition is a great trainer.
8. What Makes Cold Calling Difficult?
Telesales is a difficult job to do consistently and your team will need a good sales manager who is constantly coaching, and supporting them if they are to be successful.
Although many sales staff see telephone selling as the entry level and beginners rung of the sales profession. However, a good Inside sales person is worth their weight in gold.
- Cold Calling has an average conversion rate to appointments of 1-3%
- Pushy sales tactics deter 84% of buyers
- Sales Reps spend 40% of their time looking for sales prospects
- 80% of cold calls go to voicemail
- A survey by Leap Job claims only 2% of cold calls result in an appointment
- A survey by Telenet states in 2007 it took an average of 3.68 attempts to reach a prospect. Today it takes 8 attempts.
Individual and group places on our courses can be booked by calling the office or filling out the Booking request form
9. Telephone Sales Training
We have been successfully delivering our essential telephone selling skills course since 2014. Delivered by our team of expert trainers, the course covers everything a sales team needs to generate sales leads and improve sales performance across your sales staff.
The telesales courses will help your sales team choose the most likely potential customers to call, the best methods for getting past the gatekeeper and ensure you are talking to the right person. How to build rapport, gain the customer’s interest and how to move them to the next stage of your sales process. How to handle objections and build an effective communication process with potential customers.
Lead generation is an important part of telesales success, however, in most cases you are not selling, but more often, you will need be securing a further call or meeting with other people in the buyers decision making unit and or securing a call back.
Find out how we can help you create more sales opportuntities and win more business with our telesales course now.
Why Non “Salesy” Sales Training for Consultants Works
In this article we will cover...
There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…
Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video…
1. Why Being Salesy Doesn’t Work for Consultants
Being Salesy is forcing your beliefs and opinions on why someone should buy a product or service from you. This rarely works because the approach is very off-putting for the person receiving on the receiving end and in most cases damages the Consultants personal brand in addition to the brand of the business.
Being Salesy clashes with our personal values which are the unwritten rules that guide the way we live and behave. When we are living and acting in congruence with our personal values people are the most productive and the most successful which is why being “salesy” doesn’t work for consultants or anyone else for that matter.
Consultants are not Sales People, they are experts in their chosen field and any sales training should be bespoke and reflect and leverage that expertise.
2. Selling Tips for Consultants Who are Introverts
Roughly one third of the population are introverts which means they are more likely to be uncomfortable around other people whether they are selling or not.
Introverts can make great salespeople as they are usually good listeners, good at building relationships and have high level of self awareness.
There are some practical steps that Consultants who believe themselves to be introverts can take to to help themselves enjoy the experience of selling more.
People who are introverts have a “self-as-story”. This self story reinforces negative beliefs such as they are introverted, not good with people and cannot sell.
It’s important to develop a new and believable “self-as-story” with more positive beliefs such as “I am not an introvert I am an Ambivert”.
Ambiverts are the third of the population who sit in the middle between introverts and extroverts. “I am good with people and I enjoying spending time helping others.”
Most human beings are by nature kind and well-meaning so this is again a believable statement.
“My job is not to sell but instead to be of service, help people and create the right conditions for someone to buy; if they want to.”
3. Sales Training for Consultants
We often are asked to train what we call Non-Selling Professionals in new selling techniques and these are people in a business where the sales function is not their primary role, they could be Consultants, but equally, they could be Lawyers, Engineers, Analysts, Accountants, Developers & Architects etc.
In most cases when we first meet them they proclaim that they could never be a salesperson – the reality is that humility is one of the traits that means that they absolutely could be a great salesperson.
Unfortunately, what’s holding these people back is that the publics’ perception of a salesperson is largely negative and the type of adjectives the public use, when asked to describe a salesperson, are words like “liar”, “selfish”, “talks too much”, “money-grabber” and “annoying”.
The reality is that most salespeople are nothing like this, however, sometimes we pay the price for those that go before us and unfortunately there are, albeit a small number of salespeople, who are like that. If you think about it though, those traits are hardly a recipe for success.
4. How to get sales leads without picking up the phone
After spending years trying to train and coach consultants, engineers and technical people from every different industry, we came to the realisation that nothing we could ever do would motivate them to pick up the phone and make a cold call consistently.
If we showed them how to make a cold call that won them a $1 million dollar order they would still prefer to come in the next day and work at their desktops. These same people, however, would be more than happy to take inbound calls and talk to strangers who had called them.
The answer to the challenge was easy then – get their phones to ring and get their email to ping. If you talk to anyone in B2B marketing they will probably say quite rightly that generating a consistent flow of inbound leads is not easy.
We worked with our own team to develop a new strategy around this and worked to implement this strategy into our own business to prove it works and to gather some good data.
What is this strategy and can it work for me? In simple terms the strategy involves leveraging the knowledge and expertise of the consultants, and position them and their company as SME’ s (Subject Matter Experts). We then help them develop thought leadership content that buyers were interested in.
We then help them take that knowledge and place it on their website in a way that can be easily found and ranked on Page 1 of Google – just the same way you found this article. This then creates a steady stream of self qualified sales leads who have already bought into the expertise of your consultants and keen to engage further.
What’s more unlike pay per click ads these articles create a steady flow of new leads that fuel future growth at no cost. Once the content is published that’s it.
No cold calls, no outbound phone calls of any sort. In fact, in some cases our clients are now closing deals via email.
If this approach interests you and you would like to learn more please contact us for further details.
5. Training Sessions for Sales Consultants
In most cases sales training for Consultants is delivered over 1 & 2-day courses. This can work however in our experience, Consultants can immediately feel defensive if they are told they need training as they are nearly always mature adults and often have had a negative experience from previous Sales Training programmes they have attended.
The best way around this is to choose sales training for Consultants that is specifically designed for Consultants and content that highlights the skills and experience of the Consultants. The trainer should have experience of training a wide variety of non-selling professionals and be able to address the specific learning styles and needs of this type of audience.
What can be equally productive is running workshops where the Consultants get to choose what they feel would benefit them most. This way they feel more empowered as they have chosen the content and by definition, the content should be more targeted and relevant.
The only drawback to this is that this requires an experienced facilitator/trainer who knows the answers to the Consultants Sales Challenges from memory and can articulate them without a PowerPoint. If the trainer has to stop the session to look up the answers in a textbook or slide deck they will lose all credibility.
These workshops should have defined outcomes with action plans to make sure they are more than just a talking shop and deliver real impact for the Consultants and the company.
6. Sales Training Tips for Sales Consultants
Most people have a common misconception that selling is all about closing and forcing people to make decisions that they might not want to make. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth as the most successful salespeople simply don’t do this because they know it doesn’t work and in many cases destroys any trust or relationship that they have with the prospect.
In most cases, traditional Sales Training for Consultants won’t work because the techniques they use go against the Values & Beliefs of the Consultants. No matter how good the trainer is unless the content is based on actions that are congruent with the beliefs and values of the Consultant it will simply be a waste of everyone’s time and money.
What will work however is if the training is designed to position the Consultants as Trusted Advisors to their prospects and the sales activities are aligned with positioning them as Thought Leaders in their Industry.
The following sales tips help Consultants & Non-Selling Professionals understand that Professional Selling is more about building trust and relationships than it is about “Closing” prospects.
To sell more consultants should focus on building TRUST
T = Time
R = Reliability
U = Unselfishness
S = Soundness
T = Truthfulness
Time
Set Goals and manage your own time – be effective, not busy. Be respectful of your clients’ time, turn up on time to meetings, prepare before meetings to get the most from them. Spend time with clients to help them. Focus your time on your best prospects.
Reliability
Get a plan and stick to it, sales plans, communications plans and account plans. Many sales are lost when you are back in your own office. Respond to every email within 24 hours, manage expectations and take ownership of problems and follow up.
Unselfishness
Listen, empathise and give, yes give, as in Emersons Law of Compensation. Stop trying to sell and start trying to help, have conversations, not sales pitches. Recognise when there is no fit and walk away – never force the sale. Pass on referrals and give recommendations.
Soundness
Become an expert in your field. Be the “go-to” person in your industry that people refer others to. Create your own personal development plan and learn as much as you can about yourself, your customers and your customers’ customers. Mentor, coach and help others.
Truthfulness
Be true to yourself. Have those difficult conversations with family, friends, colleagues and customers. Losing some sales, losing some battles will help you win the war. Nurture and grow your integrity, self-respect and self-belief. Be authentic and true to yourself.
These Sales Techniques are not glamorous, and they might not produce an overnight transformation however they do work. Together you will see these five areas form the basis of TRUST. Selling without trust may be possible, but it is extremely hard work and will, without doubt, limit your success. In business, the antithesis of trust is a risk, and every Buyer, every CEO, every organisation will pay more for a solution that is perceived to mitigate risk. Building and sustaining TRUST is the foundation of Mastery in sales, although many of our clients have asked us to help embed these “selling techniques” throughout their organisation, not just sales.
7. Sales Training for Professional Services
Selling Professional Services can be very different from selling as a Consultant because in many cases when you are selling Professional Services the salesperson is the product.
In B2B more so than B2C, buyers rarely purchase anything from a salesperson they don’t like or trust. There are exceptions to this when the Brand Power of the product or service is very strong, for example it doesn’t take the salesperson of the year to sell Microsoft Technical Services because the power of the Microsoft brand has pre-sold most people before they go into the sales meeting and the product is Microsoft, not the Consultant.
For Consultants who do not represent a big brand like Microsoft, Deloitte, or Bain & Co, in most cases they are the brand, they are the product, and they have to work even harder to win the sale.
In many cases what is more productive for Consultants is to stop trying to sell and focus all their energies on trying to help the prospect.
We recommend a Consultative Sales Approach which focuses the sales conversation around 5 critical questions.
- What are the symptoms of the business problem?
Prospects find it easier to identify symptoms however it’s the role of the expert to ask questions and dig deeper.
- What is the Root Cause of the Problem?
The Consultant should use Root Cause Analysis techniques to identify the underlying causes of the problems.
- How is this problem impacting the business?
These questions should focus on what way the problem limits growth, profits or damage the brand in any way.
- Financial Impact
The consultant and the prospect need to do a basic cost-benefit analysis to ensure the client will see a return on any investment they make.
- Personal Impact
Lastly, the Consultant needs to uncover any personal motives or drivers that are important to the client.
Often by simply asking these questions, the Consultant will get the opportunity to position themselves as the expert at the same time building rapport and trust with the prospect.
8. Sales Training Courses for Consultants
We have training and coaching courses available to help your consultants overcome their sales challenges.
We deliver our sales training and coaching via our Online Sales gym so we can provide support throughout and after the training period.
This helps you embed the new skills and sales behaviours in your organisation to maximise the impact of our training.
You can learn more about our Sales Training for Consultants via the following articles:
Consultative Sales process here
