Advanced Sales Training | From Good to Great

Sales execution and capability

Advanced Sales Training: Why Experienced Sales Teams Need More Than Advanced Techniques

Build a team that diagnoses before it presents. This private, in-person workshop is for B2B teams that need stronger discovery, clearer value conversations and more consistent progression on live opportunities.

By Iain Swanston, Founder, Klozers

Updated 17 October 2026

What is advanced sales training?

Advanced sales training develops the capabilities experienced salespeople need when opportunities become more demanding. It can involve complex buying groups, unfamiliar markets, commercial negotiation, account planning and conversations where the consequences of a poor decision are significant.

It should not mean giving experienced sellers a longer list of techniques. First establish whether the problem is missing knowledge, difficulty applying existing skills or an absence of consistent execution standards. Each calls for a different response.

For an HR or L&D leader, the question is not whether a course looks advanced. It is whether the development will change the behaviour the organisation needs in real opportunities.

Start with the fundamentals

Experienced salespeople can still have inconsistent fundamentals. Before introducing specialist content, check the quality of discovery, qualification, listening, value discussions and agreed next steps. These are not beginner topics when the customer situation is complex.

The existing Klozers article made this point clearly: advanced training is of limited value if the team is not already proficient and consistent in core selling behaviours. That principle remains. A new enterprise programme cannot compensate for weak discovery or an unclear sales process.

Consider a team moving from smaller customers to enterprise accounts. The sellers may be successful in their current market but need to adapt to longer buying cycles, more stakeholders and different evidence requirements. The priority is not to discard their strengths. It is to retain what works and develop the capabilities the new market demands.

Three gaps that can look like a training problem

Different causes can produce the same visible symptom: an opportunity that does not progress. Diagnose the cause before deciding what to teach.

Knowledge, application and execution standards require different responses. Editorial comparison, not a Klozers assessment instrument.

Knowledge gap

Different causes can produce the same visible symptom: an opportunity that does not progress. Diagnose the cause before deciding what to teach.

Application gap

A seller can describe the right approach but struggles when the customer challenges the business case or introduces a new stakeholder. Practice, observation and feedback are more relevant than repeating the theory.

Execution standard

The team knows the expected approach, but managers do not inspect or reinforce it consistently. More content alone will not establish a shared standard. Leaders need clear behavioural expectations and a practical way to review evidence.

Where advanced B2B selling becomes difficult

Complex opportunities expose capability gaps that routine deals may not reveal. The following situations provide useful starting points for a development brief.

Multiple stakeholders: the seller has a supportive contact but cannot establish access to the Economic Owner or understand the wider buying group.
Commercial value: the team can describe features but cannot establish the cost of the current problem or explain the value of change.
Qualification: opportunities remain in the forecast despite limited evidence of customer commitment.
Negotiation: sellers offer discounts before understanding what the customer values and which conditions can be exchanged.
New markets: successful approaches in one segment do not transfer automatically to enterprise accounts or different industries.

These are examples of situations to diagnose, not a claim that every experienced team has the same problems. Select priorities using evidence from actual sales work.

Why simulation matters for experienced sellers

Experienced sellers often understand the principles. The difficulty is demonstrating them when a commercial conversation becomes challenging. Simulation provides a controlled opportunity to practise, receive feedback and try again before applying the behaviour in a live deal.

Complex opportunities require specific behaviours to be practised before a live deal.

For example, a seller may need to explain an investment case to a sceptical Economic Owner, address a technical evaluator’s concerns and maintain a clear next step. The training should test the specific behaviour required, not simply reward a persuasive presentation.

Simulation is a development mechanism, not a substitute for an agreed execution standard. The team still needs to know which behaviours matter, how they are observed and what managers will reinforce afterwards. See sales simulation for experienced teams.

Build on what your best people already do

Klozers’ approach begins with the organisation’s commercial requirements and existing best practice. Before programme design, the team examines how its strongest performers handle relevant customer situations. Effective internal practice is retained; additional approaches are introduced where gaps remain.

This is especially important for experienced teams. Replacing successful habits with a standard external methodology can create unnecessary resistance and may fail to address the real problem. A bespoke programme can focus on the accounts, conversations and decisions that matter to the business.

The original article described a programme for a team moving into larger accounts. Its useful principle was to combine relevant learning with a campaign and workplace application. We retain that principle without repeating the original client numbers or presenting them as independently verified outcomes.

What managers must reinforce after the session

Reinforcement should be designed before the training takes place. Agree who will observe the behaviour, when they will review it and what evidence they need. A manager who was not involved in the original brief may otherwise evaluate activity rather than the capability the programme was intended to develop.

For instance, if the requirement is better enterprise qualification, the follow-up discussion can examine whether the seller understands the buying group, has access to the Economic Owner and has secured a meaningful customer commitment. A completed CRM field does not by itself prove the customer has agreed to act. The manager should examine the underlying conversation and next step.

Different roles may also need different evidence. An account executive working on a complex new-business opportunity faces different decisions from an account manager expanding an established relationship. The organisation can retain common standards while tailoring the practice situations and coaching conversations to each role.

A workshop can reveal a gap and help a seller practise a better response. It cannot, on its own, ensure the behaviour becomes routine. Managers need to review how the skill is used in live work.

Agree what evidence would demonstrate improvement. For example, has the seller identified the Economic Owner? Is the next customer commitment recorded with a date and purpose? Has the customer confirmed the business problem and the value of addressing it? These are observable indicators, not invented performance statistics.

Manager conversations should focus on the required behaviour and the evidence available, rather than attendance or confidence ratings alone. This also explains why advanced training can fail to transfer into everyday selling.

How to design an advanced sales training programme

The existing article recommends starting with business objectives, identifying capability requirements, selecting appropriate activities and deciding how learning will be applied. That sequence remains useful when updated for execution standards.

Define the commercial requirement. Identify the sales situations that need to improve and why they matter.
Establish the baseline. Review real opportunities, current practices and the behaviours already demonstrated by strong performers.
Separate the gaps. Decide whether the main issue is knowledge, application or reinforcement.
Design relevant practice. Use challenging scenarios and live opportunity work where appropriate.
Agree evidence and reinforcement. Give managers clear behaviours to inspect and participants actions to apply after training.

This is an editorial programme-design sequence, not a newly named Klozers proprietary framework. Where a team needs several capabilities developed over time, a longer programme may be more suitable than a single workshop.

When is bespoke advanced sales training appropriate?

Bespoke training is appropriate when the business has a defined capability requirement, experienced participants and real situations in which to apply the learning. It can be particularly relevant when entering a new market, moving into larger accounts or changing how complex opportunities are managed.

It is less appropriate when leaders cannot agree what good execution looks like or will not reinforce the required behaviours. In that case, clarify the standards and management responsibilities before commissioning additional content.

HR and L&D leaders may organise the programme, while the Sales Director or CRO owns the commercial application. These responsibilities should be agreed without treating the Economic Buyer and Economic Owner as interchangeable roles.

Explore bespoke training for experienced sales teams to see how development can be built around your existing best practice and real opportunities.

Develop the capability your team needs

Start with the commercial requirement, your team’s existing best practice and the behaviour that needs to change.

How to Build an Outbound Sales Team

by Iain Swanston

Outbound sales

How to build an outbound sales team: hire, equip and measure it

Most outbound teams struggle for reasons that were set before the first call: the wrong people, no written standard, and targets the salespeople cannot control.

By Iain Swanston, Founder, Klozers

Updated 11 November 2026

Chart: the strongest predictors of sales performance in studies from 1982 to 2008, and what an employer can do about each. Source: Verbeke, Dietz and Verwaal, 2011.

In short

How to build an outbound sales team comes down to four decisions. Hire for mindset and values, because selling skills can be taught. Give the team a clear role and a written standard for first contact. Decide whether to build it in-house or outsource it. Then measure each salesperson on what they control, and review progress every 30 days.

Key takeaways

Hire for mindset and values. Selling skills and product knowledge can be taught after the person joins.
Give every new hire a clear role. Research across studies from 1982 to 2008 links an unclear role with lower sales performance.
Build the playbook from your best people if you have them, and from a written standard if you do not.
Measure outbound salespeople on what is inside their control, not on revenue they cannot yet influence.

How to build an outbound sales team: what comes first?

Four things come before the first hire: a confirmed reason to buy, the right words, a clear role and a capable manager. An outbound team contacts companies that have not contacted you. Inbound depends on marketing to bring enquiries in. Outbound depends on the team to start the conversation.

A reason to buy that customers have confirmed. Ask existing customers why they bought. If they cannot say it in their own words, a new team will not be able to explain it.
The words. The first sentence of a call or a letter decides whether the buyer keeps listening. Write it and test it before the team grows.
The role. Decide what the outbound team does and where its work ends. Usually that is research, first contact, testing the need and booking the next step.
A manager who can lead the team. A top salesperson does not automatically make a good outbound manager. Managing a team takes different skills from selling.

The rules on unsolicited calls, emails and LinkedIn messages differ by country. In some countries, including Germany, an advertising email to a new business contact needs prior consent. Check the rules in each country your team sells into before it starts.

Who should you hire for an outbound sales team?

Hire for mindset and values. Selling skills can be taught after the person joins. Mindset and values are what they bring with them.

The research supports teaching the skills. A meta-analysis by Verbeke, Dietz and Verwaal was published in a peer-reviewed marketing journal in 2011. It reviewed sales performance studies from 1982 to 2008. Selling-related knowledge was the strongest predictor of performance, and knowledge can be taught. Adaptiveness and work engagement were close behind. An unclear role was linked with lower performance by almost as much.

Look for these qualities of mindset:

Resilience. They keep calling after a run of refusals, and they do not take a refusal personally.
Curiosity. They want to understand the buyer's business before they talk about the product.
Adaptiveness.They change their approach when it is not working.
Ownership. They hold themselves to their own numbers without being chased.

And these values: honesty with buyers, including saying “this is not right for you” when it is true, and respect for the buyer’s time. No need, no meeting.

To test for them, ask each candidate to make a short first call to a colleague playing the buyer. Give feedback, then ask them to make the call again. The second attempt tells you more than the first. Ask about the longest run of refusals they have had and what they did next. Record what you see against the same criteria for every candidate, so the decision rests on evidence rather than a general impression.

One and two day sales workshops

Bespoke, measured, and built to last.

Every workshop is built from a blank page around your team’s own live deals. No slides. Every topic carries a KPI you agree up front, then track and prove afterwards.

Pre and post assessment, so you see the change

Worked on your real deals, in the room

Manager Embed Plan and calls at 30, 60 and 90 days

Delivered in person by a practitioner, not a presenter

Trusted by teams at Microsoft, Panasonic, TikTok, Bizerba, Marangoni and Lathams.

Should you build the team in-house or outsource it?

Outsourcing gives you experienced people quickly and keeps costs flexible. An in-house team builds product knowledge, and you control how it presents your company. That control matters, because badly run outbound damages your reputation with the accounts you most want. Outsourcing can test whether outbound works in your market. A team that will sell your product for years is usually better built in-house.

What does an outbound salesperson do?

Research target accounts and the people in them.
Make first contact by phone, letter, email or LinkedIn, within the rules of each country.
Test whether the buyer has a need, and book the next step when there is one.
Follow up on proposals and record every contact in the CRM.

In many teams, one group makes first contact and tests the need. Other salespeople take over once a need is found. Decide where that handover happens and write it down. An unclear handover produces the role ambiguity the research links with lower performance.

Where does an outbound team's playbook come from?

From your best people if you have them, and from a written standard if you do not.

If someone already wins new customers, interview them. Write down who they call, what they say in the first minute and the questions they ask. That becomes the first version of the playbook.
If nobody has done it yet, start from a written standard based on outside expertise. It sets who to call first, the reason for calling and the question to ask. Change it based on what the team learns in the first 90 days.

A script read aloud sounds like a script. Use the standard to prepare each call, not as words to read. Our page on cold calling training for outbound teams covers the phone. A go-to-market strategy decides which markets the team works.

How should you measure an outbound sales team?

Measure each salesperson on what is inside their control. In the first months, a new salesperson controls their research, first contacts and conversations. They also control the needs they find and the next steps they agree. Revenue depends on the buyer’s timing and comes later.

Chart: set targets on the measures a new salesperson controls, and track the rest without targets in the first 90 days.

Set targets for rolling 30, 60 and 90 day periods as well as the quarter. A slow first month is then visible while there is still time to correct it. In a 2024 engagement with CAEM, a team working 102 target accounts had 19 additional enterprise accounts in active conversation within 90 days. It won £167,000 from three new customers in the same period.

If the team needs support while it settles in, see our outbound sales coaching for your team.

Do this on Monday

Check that you are ready to go outbound.

Four tasks, one week, no supplier needed.

Write one paragraph describing the outbound role, including where its work ends.
Ask three customers why they bought from you, and write down their words.
List the mindset and values you will hire for, and one interview task that tests each.
Choose three measures each salesperson controls, and set a 30 day target for each.

Common questions about building an outbound sales team

How long before an outbound team produces results?

It depends on your sales cycle. Conversations and needs found should be visible within the first 30 days. New customers usually take longer. In the CAEM engagement described above, the first new customers came within 90 days.

Should outbound salespeople use scripts?

Use a written standard to prepare each call, not a script to read aloud. The standard sets who to call, the reason for calling and the question to ask. The salesperson then says it in their own words.

Can existing salespeople do outbound alongside account management?

They can, but in our experience outbound work is the first thing to stop when the team is busy. If finding new customers matters, give it protected time each week or a dedicated person.

Consultative Sales Training | How Customers Want to Buy

by Iain Swanston

Consultative Sales Training – Top question from Google

What is a Consultative Sales Approach?

Consultative selling is very different to more traditional forms of selling, as it doesn’t actually focus on selling. Instead, it focuses on building relationships with customers, listening to their problems and only then, offering them solutions to their problems.

Asking open-ended questions and active listening are key components of any consultative sales approach. This approach works because potential buyers are more motivated to buy products or services that meet their own needs, rather than the needs of the sales professional.

A consultative selling truly puts the buyer first. Instead of just selling any old product, or what happens to be on promotion that month, sales professionals using the consultative sales approach will look to sell products and services that match the exact needs of their buyers, which makes for more productive business development results and satisfied customers.

Instead of a scripted sales pitch, sales teams can use conversational skills and listen to their buyers personal and business needs. Only then do they provide advice and guidance, which includes being adaptable to the different challenges buyers may face.

Consultative selling is highly effective and can lead to far greater results for your business and better long term customer relations. Using other sales techniques typically results in salespeople chasing leads that are not a good match for the buyer. Whilst they may well win a first order, if the product isn’t right for the buyer and their customers, it is unlikely that they will build long term relationships.

However, using the consultative approach, the sales rep needs to listen to the customer needs and provide meaningful solutions, meaning your new customer can come back time and time again for your product or services.

It has become increasingly popular in recent years as sales professionals and sales managers managers have realised that traditional sales techniques have become less effective, because buyers have become wary of sales pitches. Instead of being sold a product, people prefer sales professionals to take a genuine interest in them as a person and their business.

If your product or service matches the criteria below you should consider using consultative selling:

Direct route to market
Low volume of sales but high profit margins – less popular but still relevant with transactional sales
Requires high level of industry knowledge with experienced sales people
Higher cost to employers, with lots of training required
Medium to long length sales cycles

Consultative selling requires a change in mindset. Instead of going out to sell, salespeople will need to have a conversation with potential buyers, in a structured and reputable manner. Building trust first with any potential buyer is just one fo the key selling skills required.

Initially, many sales professionals struggle to adapt to the consultative sales method, as they are almost hard wired to sell products and services via the traditional features and benefits method. However, if you choose to adapt a consultative sales approach, it is important to stick with it, as modern buyers have become more resistant to being sold product.

Steps involved in Consultative Selling

1. Research potential buyers thoroughly before contacting them

Before engaging with potential buyers, it is important that the salesperson researches the potential customer, thoroughly and effectively. If the salesperson is used to a more traditional fast-paced sales environment, taking the time at the onset of the sales process to research may seem like an alien process.

However, first impressions matter, and considering the consultative selling method prides itself on expert knowledge, you need to make sure that you have done enough research. Similarly, consultative selling involves asking probing questions, and without enough research it can be difficult or almost impossible for salespeople to ask probing questions.

2. Define the Symptoms – What are the symptoms of the problem the potential customer is facing?

During this first step the salesperson will try to get an understanding of the issue at hand. Here the salesperson will play a role of expert consultant, where their expertise of the industry can be used to discuss the issues.

It is likely that the buyer may only have a surface-level knowledge of the symptoms, therefore the expertise of a consultative salesperson is vital.

At this stage, it is vitally important that the salesperson doesn’t revert to a more traditional techniques and try to sell products or services. This is because, it is very early in the process, and it is unlikely that the salesperson will have formed a fully rounded understanding of the issues at hand, and could recommend the wrong solution.

3. Root cause analysis – ask the buyer questions to understand and diagnose the underlying causes.

During this stage, the salesperson will need to dig deeper into the problem, and find out what is causing it.

By digging deeper into the problem, the salesperson can use their knowledge to generate powerful questions that will reassure the buyer that they are dealing with an expert in the field, and that they can use their expertise to offer solutions to their problem.

This step can be a really powerful tool to build the buyers confidence in the salesperson.

4. Business impact – Ask how the issue is impacting on the business. Does it impact on morale, performance, profitability or all three?

At this stage, the salesperson and the buyer have agreed on a diagnosis of the issue, and they will now begin to understand how this impacts on the business.

If the issue has very little impact on the business, in terms of profitability or revenue, then it is very unlikely that the buyer will look to make a significant contribution (either financially or with their time) to finding a solution.

If this is the case, or if the salesperson knows that their product or service isn’t the solution to the buyers problems, then the salesperson should cut their losses here.

5. Financial Impact – Find out how much the problem will cost the business if they do not fix it.

Identifying the financial impact of the issue is another major milestone in the consultative sales method. This can be easier to measure in objective measurements, such as monetary values, rather than subjective measurements such as staff morale or culture, which are far more difficult to monitor.

If the financial impact runs into the hundreds of thousands of pounds each year, and the solution only costs £10,000 then this could be a very attractive proposal for the buyer. Alternatively, if the solution costs £100,000, and it would only save the company £10,000 each year, it will be a much less attractive proposition to the buyer.

6. Personal Impact – Find out how the problem affects the buyer personally – how does it affect their day to day job?

Potential buyers are far more likely to be convinced by a solution, if the issue directly impacts upon them. This is why when using the consultative selling skills, it is vitally important to make sure that you are speaking to the right person.

If the salesperson and buyer are involved in a complex sales solution, it is likely that the 6 step process above may need to be repeated. It may also need to be repeated with different departments and stakeholders. Whilst this inevitably adds to the time taken to sell a product or service, patience is an important aspect of consultative sales.

What do you need to be a good consultative salesperson?

Consultative selling requires some key selling skills which aren’t necessarily associated with more traditional selling methods. This includes:

Active Listening – traditionally salespeople aren’t renowned for their listening skills, but under the consultative selling method, using active listening is a key requirement. Not only does it help understand the buyers issues, it also helps you stand out from the crowd. As buyers are being turned off by hard sales pitches, if a buyer needs to choose between two similar products, they may choose for the one with the sales person that genuinely listened to their issues.

Emotional intelligence – This covers peoples ability to evaluate, perceive and control emotions. Buying and selling remains an emotional process, and it is important for salespeople to respond to the buyers emotions.

Expertise – Because consultative selling requires the salesperson to really delve deep into issues, it is important that sellers are experts in their field. However, no one wants to be overawed with information, so the salesperson will need to communicate their expertise efficiently.

Domain knowledge – Similar to expertise, salespeople will need to have a specialised knowledge of the whole domain. Not only do salespeople need to know what their customers want, they need to know what their customers’ customer want.

Self-awareness – Consultative salespeople will need to understand and manage our thoughts and the impact that can have on people.

What questions to ask?

Asking the right questions is probably the most important part of consultative selling. Asking aimless questions or having an unstructured conversation with a potential buyer, is unlikely to either build rapport or project confidence. Whilst consultative selling doesn’t involve hard selling, salespeople can still funnel a conversation one way by using structured and well designed questions. Using specialised questioning techniques when combined with active listening and the required expertise can be a winning combination.

There are several types of consultative selling questions. They are:

Open ended questions – These are used to gather further information

Closed questions – Should be used for confirmation

Summary questions – Sales professionals should will summarise or paraphrase the prospective buyers statement and turn it into a question. These are used to confirm the correct understanding of issues.

Funnelling questions – These channel the conversation through a particular area.

Redirect questions – Sales Professionals should use these questions to control the conversation and move the sales process forward.

Opposing redirect – These questions is answering a question with a question back to the buyer.

Presumptive questions – Presumptive questions are questions when the salesperson knows or presume the prospective buyer does not know the answer.

Which Products and Services are best suited to Consultative Sales Techniques?

The great thing about Consultative sales techniques are that they can be used in almost any industry, or with any product or service. Our own clients sell a wide range of services from Waste Management through to Aircraft Manufacturing each using a consultative sales approach.

Furthermore, once you have mastered the system it can be as flexible as possible. We have clients using a consultative sales approach and closing deals on one inbound sales call, and we also have clients using the exact same consultative approach to close large enterprise deals through a six month sales cycle.

What is Consultative Sales Training?

Consultative selling requires a change in mindset and as such effective training is vitally important. As a specialist sales provider we offer training in consultative sales, and a range of courses from giving people a solid baseline understanding of the method through to those seeking to master the sales techniques.

As an international training provider we believe that sales teams learn better if they are doing the task, rather than reading text books or watching a presentation, and as such part of our training includes role place sessions. Consultative sales training also cover all aspects of the sales process, including social selling techniques.

It is also important to remember that consultative selling requires ongoing reinforcement training, so you should consider booking in several sessions, to ensure that your sales team do not revert to their natural selling habits.

Outside of training, under any sales technique it is important that sales professionals have enough support and encouragement. This is even more important under the consultative selling technique. Sales coaching from a sales manager between training sessions, can be a vitally important resource.

You can check out our course on consultative sales and book online here.

Klozers Sales Training

More than just sales training, we train salespeople the essential sales skills that turns them into a top performer. We work with your sales team taking them on a journey from Business Development and winning new customers, through to creating long term relationships.

Consultative Selling is more than just asking probing questions, it’s also when and how to ask them in a way that fosters and builds trust.

We help you identify the key areas that your sales team needs to uncover customer needs, become problem solving gurus, and close more deals.

Phone Sales Training | The Secret to Making More Sales

by Iain Swanston

Phone sales training

Phone Sales Training: Practical Skills for Inbound and Outbound Calls

Selling on the phone is not one skill. An inbound enquiry and an outbound call start in different places, so the salesperson needs a different objective, conversation and next step.

By Iain Swanston, Founder, Klozers

Updated 8 October 2026

7 minute read

What is phone sales training?

Phone sales training teaches salespeople how to prepare for, conduct and progress sales conversations by telephone. Good training distinguishes between inbound enquiries, where the buyer has initiated contact because they are exploring a recognised need or requirement, and outbound calls, where the salesperson initiates contact and must first establish whether a relevant sales conversation exists.

Key takeaways

Inbound and outbound calls should not be trained as the same conversation.
An inbound caller has initiated contact because they are exploring a recognised need or requirement, but that does not make the enquiry a qualified opportunity.
On an outbound call, the seller initiates contact and must earn enough attention and relevance to continue.
One script cannot sensibly cover cold outbound, inbound enquiry, opportunity progression and existing-account calls.
Phone sales training should include practice, feedback and coaching against the calls salespeople actually make.

What is the difference between inbound and outbound phone sales?

The difference begins with who starts the contact.

Inbound sales are buyer initiated. The prospect contacts the organisation because they are exploring a recognised need, problem or requirement. They may have found the business through search, a referral, an event, advertising, word of mouth, existing awareness or their own research. The source does not define the enquiry. The buyer initiating contact does.

Outbound sales are seller initiated. The salesperson contacts a prospect who has not asked for that conversation. The salesperson cannot assume the prospect has a current requirement, recognises the problem or wants to conduct discovery.

That distinction is consistent with Salesforce’s current definition of inbound sales: prospects reach out to the organisation themselves, and not every inbound lead originates in marketing activity.

Inbound and outbound calls start with different levels of buyer intent, context and permission.

Inbound starts with a conversation the buyer has chosen to have. Outbound first has to earn the conversation.

How should you handle an inbound sales enquiry by phone?

An inbound caller has done something commercially significant before the salesperson answers: they have chosen to contact potential suppliers or advisers about something they recognise they need to explore.

That does not mean they are ready to buy from you. It does not prove they have budget, authority or a defined project. They may be researching, benchmarking an incumbent supplier, gathering quotations, creating a shortlist or trying to understand their options.

The first job is therefore to understand the enquiry rather than rush into a presentation.

Why are they calling now?

Understand what happened, changed or became important enough for them to make contact.

What are they trying to achieve?

Explore the recognised need, problem or outcome behind the enquiry.

What have they already considered?

The caller may already have researched approaches, suppliers and alternatives.

How do they intend to buy?

Establish timing, requirements, stakeholders, decision process and what matters in the choice.

Inbound salespeople can lose opportunities by treating enquiries as orders to process. They can also lose them by turning the first conversation into an interrogation. The aim is to understand enough of the buyer’s context to determine fit and agree a useful next step.

Salesforce notes that inbound prospects are generally better informed because they have already done research before contacting the supplier. That supports the need to discover what the caller already knows rather than beginning every inbound conversation from zero.

How should you make an outbound sales call?

Outbound is different because the salesperson chose the timing, not the prospect. The prospect may have no recognised requirement and no reason to answer a sequence of discovery questions from a stranger.

Preparation therefore matters. Know who you are calling, why the conversation may be relevant and what credible context supports the reason for the call.

The opening should establish who you are and why you are calling without hiding behind a long introduction. Then establish whether there is enough relevance to continue.

Do not confuse a cold call with a full discovery meeting. Gong’s analysis of cold calls argues that discovery-style questioning should generally come after the first meeting has been earned, rather than turning an unsolicited call into a long needs analysis.

Current Gong research based on more than 300 million cold calls also found that leading with context is an important feature of stronger cold-call openings.

For more depth on this specific discipline, see our cold calling training guide. The broader phone sales article should not collapse every telephone conversation into cold calling.

What phone sales skills do salespeople need?

The skill mix depends on the call, but several capabilities matter across phone selling.

Listening

Hear what the buyer says and what still needs clarification rather than waiting for a gap to deliver the next scripted line.

Questioning

Ask questions appropriate to the stage and purpose of the call.

Clarity

Explain ideas simply without relying on slides, visual cues or excessive product detail.

Commercial judgement

Recognise whether the conversation should progress, stop or move to a different person or next step.

Objection handling

Understand what sits behind resistance before deciding how to respond.

Call control

Keep the conversation useful and focused without dominating it.

Telephone selling also removes much of the body language available in a face-to-face meeting. Tone, pace, pauses, clarity and attentive listening therefore become more important signals in the conversation.

Should salespeople use telephone sales scripts?

Scripts can help people prepare language for common situations, particularly when they are new. The problem starts when the script replaces listening and judgement.

A single script is particularly unsuitable across inbound and outbound calls. An inbound caller has already chosen to contact the organisation. Opening that conversation as if it were a cold call ignores the buyer’s intent. Equally, starting an outbound call with detailed qualification questions assumes permission that has not yet been earned.

Use call structures, examples and practice rather than forcing every conversation through identical wording. Salespeople should know the purpose of each stage and be able to respond naturally to what the buyer actually says.

Our separate article on telesales training covers the telesales context without treating telesales and all phone selling as the same search intent.

How should you prepare for a sales call?

Preparation starts by identifying the type and purpose of the call. An inbound enquiry, cold outbound call, opportunity follow-up and account-growth conversation should not have identical objectives.

A simple planning structure for deciding what the call needs to achieve before picking up the phone.

For outbound calls, research information that helps you establish relevance. For inbound enquiries, use the information the buyer has already provided and any available context so you do not ask them to repeat things the organisation should already know.

Then decide what you genuinely need to understand and what an appropriate next step would be. Preparation should improve the conversation, not turn it into a predetermined pitch.

What questions should you ask on a sales call?

There is no universal list because the questions should follow the purpose of the call.

For an inbound enquiry, useful questions often explore why the buyer contacted you now, what they are trying to change, what they have already considered, who is affected, how they will make the decision and what a successful outcome looks like.

For a cold outbound call, fewer and lighter questions may be appropriate until the salesperson has established relevance and earned a fuller conversation. Gong’s discovery-call research supports targeted questioning rather than treating the conversation as a checklist.

The quality of the question matters more than demonstrating that you have memorised a large bank of them. Ask something because the answer changes what you do next.

How should you handle objections on the phone?

First establish what the objection means. “It’s too expensive”, “send me something” or “we already have a supplier” can each represent different concerns depending on the buyer and stage of the conversation.

Avoid racing to rebut the buyer. Listen, acknowledge the concern, clarify what sits behind it and then respond to the issue you have actually understood.

Inbound and outbound objections also differ. An outbound prospect may simply be telling you the conversation is not relevant. An inbound buyer objecting to price may be comparing options inside an active buying process. Treating both as objections to overcome can waste everyone’s time.

How should you finish a sales call?

Finish with clarity. If there is a genuine reason to continue, agree what happens next, who is responsible and when it will happen.

The next step should match the call. A cold outbound call may earn a scheduled discovery meeting. An inbound enquiry may progress to a technical discussion, demonstration, proposal or meeting with additional stakeholders. An existing opportunity may need a specific action before it can progress.

If there is no fit or no reason to continue, say so. A phone sales process should help salespeople qualify out as well as progress opportunities.

How should managers coach phone sales calls?

Coach against real calls and the purpose of those calls. Do not score an inbound enquiry against a cold-call opening checklist or criticise an outbound salesperson for failing to conduct deep discovery during a brief first contact.

Listen for preparation, relevance, questioning, listening, clarity, qualification, objection handling and the quality of the agreed next step. Then choose a small number of behaviours to practise rather than giving the salesperson a long list of corrections.

Role play is useful when it reproduces realistic situations. Practise an inbound buyer who has already researched competitors, an outbound prospect who does not recognise the problem, or a live opportunity where the salesperson needs access to another stakeholder.

Where the commercial problem is specifically outbound lead generation rather than general phone capability, our outbound lead generation coaching page explains the broader support available.

Phone sales training FAQs

What is phone sales training?

Phone sales training develops the skills required to prepare for, conduct and progress sales conversations by telephone. It should reflect whether the call is inbound, outbound, opportunity progression or account growth.

What is an inbound sales call?

An inbound sales call is initiated by the buyer. The caller has recognised a need, problem or requirement and is contacting the organisation while exploring how to address it. The enquiry still needs to be understood and qualified.

What is an outbound sales call?

An outbound sales call is initiated by the seller. The prospect has not requested the conversation, so the salesperson must establish relevance and earn enough attention to determine whether a further sales conversation makes sense.

Is phone sales training the same as cold calling training?

No. Cold calling is one type of outbound phone sales activity. Phone sales also includes inbound enquiries, qualification, opportunity progression, follow-up and existing-client conversations.

Do telephone sales scripts work?

Scripts can support preparation and new salespeople, but rigid scripts can weaken listening and judgement. Different call types require different objectives and conversations, so one universal script is rarely appropriate.

Iain Swanston

Founder & Lead Trainer Klozers · London, Dortmund, Austin, Melbourne

Connect with Iain on LinkedIn

Need help improving your team's phone sales skills?

We can help your salespeople practise the inbound and outbound conversations they actually need to handle.

SaaS Demo Best Practices | How to Give a Great SaaS Demo

by Iain Swanston

Exhibition Sales Training – how to maximise your investment

by Iain Swanston

Exhibition Sales Training - maximising your investment

11 Steps to Create Sales Battlecards that Win More Deals

by Iain Swanston

Sales Prospecting Training Course | Start Filling your Pipeline Now!

by Iain Swanston

Outbound sales

Sales prospecting training course for B2B teams, built on your own accounts

Finding new customers depends on four decisions: which companies to target, when to call, who to call, and what to say in the first minute.

By Iain Swanston, Founder, Klozers

Updated 5 November 2026

Diagram: a first meeting with a senior buyer needs four things in place before the request. The 17% figure is from a Gartner press release of 15 September 2020.

In short

A sales prospecting training course teaches salespeople how to find and start conversations with new customers. A good programme works on the team’s own accounts. It covers which companies to target and when, who to call first, what to say on the first call and which channels to use. Managers then review progress for 90 days.

Key takeaways

Build the target list from your ten best customers. The attributes they share define the lookalike accounts, and public triggers show which of them to call now.
Call the people with the strongest reason to hear from you first: customers, people who contacted you, introductions, then lookalike accounts with a recent trigger.
Write down why you are calling each person before you call. In Germany that record is also what makes a business call lawful.
A senior buyer agrees to meet when there is a reason for calling, a problem they own, a small request and clear success criteria.

What should a sales prospecting training course cover?

It should cover which companies to target, when to contact them, who to call, what to say and which channels to use. Most training covers the channels and leaves out the rest, which decides whether the call works.

How do you build a list of companies like your best customers?

Start from the customers you already have, not from a database filter. Take your ten best customers from the last three years. Best means they bought again, bought quickly or paid well, not only that they spent the most.

For each one, record facts anyone could check:

Sector, and what the company sells.
Size: the number of employees, and the size of the team you sell to.
Where they sell: the home market only, or abroad as well.
Ownership: family-owned, owned by an investor, or part of a group.
What happened inside the company just before they bought from you.
The job title of the person who first contacted you.

The attributes that most of the ten share are your ideal customer profile. A company with the same attributes that is not yet a customer is a lookalike account, and those accounts are your target list.

For a worked example, see our guide to a profile of your ideal customer. Public sources are enough to find the lookalike accounts. In the UK, Companies House lists registered companies with their officers and filing history. In Germany, the Handelsregister and the Bundesanzeiger publish the same kind of information. Trade association member lists and trade fair exhibitor lists add companies in your sector. Hannover Messe alone has about 3,000 exhibitors, according to its organisers.

Keep the list small enough to research properly. The CAEM team described below worked 102 named accounts, not several thousand.

How do triggers and buying cycles tell you when to call?

A trigger is an event that makes a change inside a company more likely, and with it a purchase. It tells you which accounts on your list to call now. Most companies on any list are not buying at a given moment. Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute made an estimate in May 2021. If a business changes supplier about once every five years, only about 5% of buyers are in the market in any quarter. He describes this as a rule of thumb, not a precise measure.

Triggers are internal or external. Internal triggers happen inside the company:

A new leader in the department you sell to. Trade press personnel news and LinkedIn job changes show these.
Hiring in that department. Job boards show vacancies by function and city.
Growth: a new site, a new product line or entry into a new country. Press releases and trade fair exhibitor lists show these.
A change of owner or a merger. Company registers record these, for example Companies House filings in the UK and Handelsregister notices in Germany.
A contract with their current supplier coming to an end. Your contacts at the account usually know the date.

External triggers happen around the company and force it to respond:

Which triggers matter depends on what you sell and who buys it. Your best customers show you. Look at what happened inside and around each company just before it bought from you. Those are the triggers to watch for across your lookalike accounts.

Buying cycles tell you how early to act. 6sense surveyed more than 4,000 buyers for its 2025 Buyer Experience Report. It found that 94% of buying groups had ranked their preferred suppliers before their first contact with a seller. The same report put the average buying cycle at about 10 months. So contact an account when the trigger happens, not when the tender is published.

Your own customers show the cycle in your market. Record when each customer first spoke to you, when they approved the budget and when they signed. The months that repeat tell you when to contact the lookalike accounts.

Who should your salespeople call first?

Call the people with the strongest reason to hear from you first. A good fit with your ideal customer profile tells you which companies to target, but it is not a reason to call. Work through four groups in this order.

Existing and past customers. Include other divisions and other country companies of the same group. They already know your work.
People who contacted you. Enquiries, people who asked at an event to be called, and people who replied to a letter.
Introductions. People a colleague, partner or customer has introduced, where the introducer has confirmed that the person wants the call.
Lookalike accounts with a recent trigger. The trigger tells you why this company, and why now.

Before each call, write down four things: where the contact came from, the date, what shows their interest, and who the person is. If you cannot write the third item, you are not ready to call.

In Germany this record also matters legally. A call to a business is lawful only where specific facts, known before the call, show that this company would want it. Germany’s highest civil court, the BGH, has ruled that a general fit with your offer does not meet that test. This is not legal advice. Check the rules with a lawyer in each country where your team sells.

One and two day sales workshops

Bespoke, measured, and built to last.

Every workshop is built from a blank page around your team’s own live deals. No slides. Every topic carries a KPI you agree up front, then track and prove afterwards.

Pre and post assessment, so you see the change

Worked on your real deals, in the room

Manager Embed Plan and calls at 30, 60 and 90 days

Delivered in person by a practitioner, not a presenter

Trusted by teams at Microsoft, Panasonic, TikTok, Bizerba, Marangoni and Lathams.

What should a salesperson say on the first call?

Build the first minute on four things a senior buyer needs before agreeing to meet. Buyers have very little time for suppliers. Gartner research reported in September 2020 found that buyers typically spend only 17% of their time meeting potential suppliers when they consider a purchase.

The reason for calling. Say why you are calling this person, now. For example: “Your colleague in Munich suggested I call you.” Or: “I read that you are opening a second site in Poland.”
A problem they own. Name a problem the buyer already owns, in their terms, and ask about it. For example: “When a company opens a second site, [the problem your product solves] often becomes urgent in the first year. Is that happening for you?” Do not describe your product.
A limited request. Ask for twenty minutes with a clear agenda, not a product demonstration. For example: “Would twenty minutes next week be useful? I would cover how two companies of a similar size dealt with it.”
Their success criteria. Ask what would make the meeting worthwhile, and write down the answer in their words. For example: “What would you need to see in those twenty minutes for it to be worth your time?”

If the person says the problem belongs to someone else, ask who. The right first meeting is usually with the Economic Owner, the person who owns the problem and the outcome. The Economic Buyer, who releases the money, is a different person. Most teams try to reach the Economic Buyer first and are referred to a more junior colleague.

Which channels should the training cover?

The phone, letters, email and LinkedIn. The rules differ by country, so the training should follow the rules where your buyers are.

The phone. The fastest way to find out whether there is interest, for the four groups above. Our page on cold calling and prospecting training covers the phone in more detail.
Letters. A postal letter to a named senior person, with a simple way to reply. In Germany this is the main lawful first contact with a new account.
Email. Use it with existing customers and with people who have agreed to hear from you. Under § 7 of the German unfair competition law (UWG), an advertising email to a new business contact needs their prior express consent.
LinkedIn. Use it to research the buying group and to continue conversations with people you know. German legal commentary treats a promotional LinkedIn message like an email, so send an offer only when the person asks for one.

External triggers happen around the company and force it to respond:

What results should you expect from the training?

Expect a measurable change in new conversations within 90 days, if the work continues after the training day. In a 2024 engagement with CAEM, a team working 102 target accounts had 19 additional enterprise accounts in active conversation within 90 days. It won £167,000 from three new customers in the same period. The full account is on our case studies page.

Each salesperson writes their own 90 day action plan during the session, and their manager reviews it at 30, 60 and 90 days. Where a team needs continued support, outbound lead generation coaching keeps the same plan in place week by week.

How do you practise first contact without risking your best accounts?

Practise on accounts you would like to win but would not miss. Use them to test new openings, and move a method to your priority accounts only after it has produced meetings. In the training, each salesperson writes and delivers the first call for a real account on their own list.

Do this on Monday

Test your team's first contact with one list and one hour.

You do not need a supplier to find out whether your team is ready to find new customers. You need one meeting and four steps.

Ask each salesperson to name ten accounts that match your best customers and have had a trigger in the last six months.
For each account, write down the named person they will call and the reason for calling them now.
For each person, write one sentence on why they would accept a meeting, in terms of a problem they own.
Count the accounts that have all three. That number is your starting point.

Common questions about sales training for finding new customers

How long does the training take?

Most programmes run for one or two days, on site or live online. Managers then review each salesperson’s plan at 30, 60 and 90 days.

Is it suitable for new salespeople?

Yes. We teach the same approach at every level. New salespeople often adopt it faster, because they have fewer old habits. Experienced salespeople contribute real examples from their own accounts.

Do you run open courses with public dates?

No. Every programme is private to your team and is built around your own target accounts.

Virtual Sales Training | 5 Sales Techniques to Master

by Iain Swanston

Sales training formats

Virtual sales training

When your salespeople work in different places, training them over video can work as well as training them together. The result depends on how the sessions are spaced and what happens between them.

By Iain Swanston, Founder, Klozers

Updated 11 November 2026

Chart: web-based training against classroom training. When the teaching method was the same, the results were the same. Source: Sitzmann and colleagues, Personnel Psychology, 2006.

In short

Virtual sales training is sales training delivered live over video instead of in one room. Research comparing online and classroom delivery found them equally effective when the teaching method was the same. What decides the result is the method: short sessions a week apart, live deals worked on between them, and sessions designed to limit Zoom fatigue.

Key takeaways

Virtual sales training suits teams whose salespeople work in different places, where bringing them together costs too much time or money.
Online and classroom delivery perform about equally when the teaching method is the same. The method decides the result.
Four 90-minute sessions spread over several weeks give people time to try each topic on a live deal before the next one.
Zoom fatigue is real. Design for it with 90-minute sessions, one a day, and self-view turned off.

When is virtual sales training the right choice?

Virtual sales training is the right choice when your salespeople work in different places. It suits teams with neither the budget nor the time to bring everyone to one location. For a team spread across regions or countries, a day together also means travel, hotels and more days away from customers. Often the real alternative to virtual training is no training at all.

There is a second reason. Your salespeople may already sell over video. McKinsey surveyed nearly 4,000 B2B decision makers in 2024. About a third of buyers preferred in-person contact, a third preferred remote contact, and a third preferred to buy online by themselves. The survey found the same split across every region, industry and company size. A team that sells over video can practise over video.

If the whole team already works in one place, a day together is still the simplest option.

Does virtual sales training work?

Yes, when the method is right. A meta-analysis by Sitzmann and colleagues, published in Personnel Psychology in 2006, compared web-based and classroom training. Web-based training was 6% more effective for teaching knowledge, and the two were about equally effective for teaching skills. When both used the same teaching methods, they were equally effective. In longer courses where online learners practised, received feedback and set their own pace, web-based training was 19% more effective for knowledge. The studies were of workplace and academic training, not sales training.

The finding is consistent with what we see. Training rarely fails because of where it happens. It fails because people go back to work and nothing changes. A recorded presentation fails online for the same reason a lecture fails in a room. Our article on why training fades without reinforcement covers this in more detail. Self-paced courses are a different product, covered in our guide to online sales training.

One and two day sales workshops

Bespoke, measured, and built to last.

Every workshop is built from a blank page around your team’s own live deals. No slides. Every topic carries a KPI you agree up front, then track and prove afterwards.

Pre and post assessment, so you see the change

Worked on your real deals, in the room

Manager Embed Plan and calls at 30, 60 and 90 days

Delivered in person by a practitioner, not a presenter

Trusted by teams at Microsoft, Panasonic, TikTok, Bizerba, Marangoni and Lathams.

Why split a one-day workshop into weekly sessions?

Because people learn a skill better when the practice is spread out. Our one-day workshop has four 90-minute topics. When we deliver it virtually, we split them into four separate sessions, run once or twice a week. Each session works on the participants’ own live deals. Between sessions, each salesperson tries the topic on a real account and reports back at the next one. One topic a week also takes the least time away from normal work: 90 minutes a week instead of a full day away from customers.

Chart: the same four topics delivered in one day, or one a week with live deals worked on between sessions. Source for the finding: Moulton and colleagues, Annals of Surgery, 2006.

The closest evidence comes from surgery. In a randomised trial published in the Annals of Surgery, 38 junior surgeons learned the same technique with the same practice time. One group practised in a single day and the other in weekly sessions. A month later, the weekly group kept more of the skill and performed better in a live operation.

The wider research agrees. A review of 317 experiments found that spaced learning was consistently remembered better than learning in one block. Spacing alone helps less when a skill is complex. A review of 63 studies found the smallest benefit for the most complex tasks. Selling is complex. So most of the gain comes from what people do between sessions, not from the gap alone.

That is why each session starts with the participants, not the trainer. Each salesperson says what they tried on their deal, and what happened. In a study by Roediger and Karpicke, people who recalled material from memory remembered more a week later than people who reread it.

Chart: rereading helps in the first few minutes, and recall helps after two days and a week. Source: Roediger and Karpicke, Psychological Science, 2006.

FQE Chemicals in Texas took its programme virtually, spread over three weeks so participants had time to apply each topic between sessions.

What is Zoom fatigue, and how do you design around it?

Zoom fatigue is the tiredness people feel after video calls. Jeremy Bailenson at Stanford proposed four causes. They are close-up eye contact for long periods, the effort of reading signals on a screen, seeing yourself all the time, and sitting still. He presents them as arguments, not tested findings. A survey of 9,787 people then found more fatigue among people who had more calls, longer calls and fewer breaks. Women reported more fatigue than men, mainly from anxiety about seeing themselves on screen.

Cameras matter too. In a four-week field experiment, days with cameras on caused more fatigue, and fatigue reduced how much people spoke and took part. We still keep cameras on for the whole session. It is a courtesy to everyone else on the call, and salespeople who sell over video need to be comfortable on camera. So we limit fatigue in other ways:

Teams that want to test how they handle a whole deal, not one topic at a time, can take a virtual sales simulation. For teams that want each topic built around their own accounts, we offer bespoke training on your team’s own deals.

Do this on Monday

Plan a virtual programme your team will finish.

Four tasks, one week, no supplier needed.

List where each salesperson works, and the travel cost and selling days of bringing them together.
Choose the four topics that matter most to your team this quarter.
Reserve one 90-minute slot a week for four weeks, not straight after another call.
Ask each manager to name one live deal per salesperson to work on between sessions.

Common questions about virtual sales training

How long should a virtual sales training session be?

Each Klozers session runs for 90 minutes and covers one topic. Keep to one session a day, and do not place it straight after another video call.

Should cameras be on during virtual sales training?

Yes, for the whole session. It is a courtesy to everyone else on the call, and salespeople who sell over video need to be comfortable on camera. Turning off self-view reduces the strain of seeing yourself all the time.

Can a sales simulation run online?

Yes. A simulation gives the team a constructed deal to work through, so it does not need a shared room. It suits teams that want to test how they handle a deal, not only learn a topic.

How to Build a SaaS Sales Playbook? (with FREE Template)

by Iain Swanston

Sales Training and Consulting for B2B Companies

by Iain Swanston

Why invest in Sales Training and Consulting?

There are normally two reasons companies invest in our Sales Training and Consulting services. Firstly, they are often in a hurry to find sales growth and are looking for a short cut, a growth hack.

Often these companies would eventually find the right strategies and tactics themselves, but they may be keen to capitalise on their first mover advantage or satisfy the needs of external investors.

For these companies we provide a shortcut, we help them avoid the pitfalls and roadblocks that every growing business experiences.

When you engage with Klozers your team has access to over 70 years experience in B2B sales and marketing.

Our sales training can help you get the best out of your team, alongside our consultancy services that will help you deploy the changes identified by our consultancy

Let’s take a closer look at why it makes so much sense to use sales training and consulting services together.

1. Why sales consulting compliments your sales training?

Many companies make the mistake of rushing into training as the solution to improving sales performance.

Indeed, training may be part of the solution, but it is never the whole solution. Before any training takes place it’s important to understand the root causes of the challenges within the sales department and only when we truly understand the problems can we prescribe the best possible solution.

By rushing into training we would be assuming that everything else that affects sales is 100% perfect, and that is simply never the case.

As with anything, the greater the investment upfront in terms of the diagnosis, the more effective the training will be.

This is because the training can then be customised to meet the exact needs of the business which makes it much more impactful.

2. Why is Sales Training so effective?

Sales training builds both skills and confidence, and those are simply unbeatable in front of a customer.

The best salespeople are like athletes and they are hungry to learn more and stay at the top of their game.

The reason they are so good is that they are constantly looking for an edge, an advantage, and this keeps driving them forward.

These are small but important things that make the difference and gets more deals over the line. Our training is designed to keep your team at the top of their game and help them benefit from the very latest insights and industry best practice.

Our sales trainers work hard to keep your team engaged and motivated during training sessions, using a range of mediums to maintain their attention and inspire them.

Your sales trainer will help your team sell more effectively whether that be over the phone, in-person or online.

They can help them improve their lead generation, closing and account management skills, and provide indispensable mentoring services.

3. What happens before training takes place?

Before your training sessions begin, it’s important to identify what you want to get from them. As a sales training provider we offer bespoke services that are based on your specific needs and challenges.

We can provide a full sales consultancy service in advance of any training. This would typically include an evaluation of your current sales unit in relation to sales maturity and best practice.

We can also provide full training needs analysis so you can gain a better understanding of your requirements before staring any training course.

For sales training to be effective, they need to be delivered in a way that maintains your teams’ attention, which means your sessions will include a great deal of interactivity.

Our sales training sessions include a range of demonstrations, exercises, games and roleplay.

4. What is the aim of Sales Training

Our goal as a provider is not to deliver sales training, but to deliver results.

Therefore we believe the goal of Sales training is to help you meet a range of sales goals faster than you would if you were to continue without any intervention.

Not every company’s needs are the same, but businesses often invest in sales training because they want to improve their staff’s sales skills, close more deals, create more conversions, make their staff feel more supported, improve morale and boost the average value of their sales.

However, ultimately all of these lead to one overall benefit – an improvement in results. Some companies invest in training because they have identified a particular problem that needs addressing which is being caused by a skills gaps within their businesses.

Training may also benefit your team if they seem to be lacking direction, or are feeling unmotivated. A lack of motivation can often occur because staff are unclear on what their roles are, or because the current strategies they are using are not working.

In many occasions this is why Sales consultancy is a perfect fit alongside sales training as it can also help you identify and deal with additional challenges.

5. How can a Sales Consultant help our business?

A sales consultant will help your business by taking a close look at your current situation, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and helping you make positive changes to drive revenue growth.

If you are not currently meeting your sales targets, our sales consultants can help you find out why this is happening and develop strategies to address the issues.

Our experienced consultants can help with optimising your sales processes and ensuring you get the maximum conversion ratios from the leads you are generating.

With our years of experience in B2B sales our sales consultants can introduce you to specific resources that will support your business.

These can include lead generation, marketing, sales tracking, and training programmes and software that will give you a better insight into how your sales team are performing.

6. Adding Sales Experience to your Leadership Team

When you are immersed in the day-to-day running of your company, it can be hard to assess your situation objectively.

It’s often impossible to find anyone around you who is not objective as your team all have a role which in some way will make them subjective.

Our sales consultants aren’t just there to identify problems that you weren’t previously aware of, we are completely hands on and happy to work alongside your team to implement any solutions.

Where applicable we will highlight your strengths and help you make the most of the resources that you currently have. In most cases this revolves around the creation of a sales plan, which we work with you to develop and if required are happy to help with executing against the plan.

Our consultants will work with you to help you improve relationships between departments and colleagues. For instance, we are often called upon for detailed advice on aligning sales and marketing departments so you’re delivering coherent messages to your customers.

Indeed aligning sales and marketing is one of our most popular services.

7. Which Companies benefit the most from Consulting Services

We typically have two types of customers of our consulting services. The first are larger organisations who already have a Sales Plan in place.

They need help executing and delivering against the plan as they simply lack the internal resources to do this themselves.

The second group are those looking for external and objective advice. In some cases they have seen a substantial decline in sales recently or aren’t meeting their targets they need to reach and hence are reaching out for support.

These businesses hire us because we have a track record of turning companies around. Alternately you may need external support if you have experienced changes in your industry and you’re struggling to keep up with your competitors.

Companies also may hire us because they feel missed sales targets are starting to affect morale and staff retention rates.

By investing in training and consultancy services, you can show your team you’re determined to improve and start achieving more.

8. Build a Selling System

It’s also common for companies to invest in sales consultancy services because their sales processes are confused and unclear, with team members pulling in different directions.

We are a huge advocate of having a selling system. Finance has a system, operations have a system so why not sales. Building a repeatable scalable selling system is simply a must for any business.

By mapping this out we can help your salespeople to understand how and where they can influence buyers and sell to people on different parts of their journey, helping you secure more sales.

Our consultants can also help you gain a richer understanding of the data available to you, from both your marketing automation and CRM platforms.

In many cases our clients either don’t have enough data or they are overwhelmed by data, and miss out on the most important parts. Either way we can help.

In Conclusion

Sales is an ever changing environment and more and more businesses are improving their performance, staff retention rates and workplace morale.

For most of use this means competition is tough and by investing in our sales training and consultancy services we can give you that edge you need to not just compete, but win.

Sales consultants and trainers can provide invaluable mentorship, help you identify and eradicate weaknesses, and help you make the changes that you need to not only survive but prosper.

Our team can breathe new life into your organisation and inspire people throughout your company. Whether you’ve been missing your targets or are simply ready to build upon recent success and take your business to the next level, there are many great reasons for hiring sales training and consultancy professionals.

If you are ready to hire a sales trainer, sales consultant or both, come and talk with us.

Sales and Service Training Courses

by Iain Swanston

If your business is typical, up to 80% of next years revenues will come from this years customers. Despite this many organisations give little or no thought to customer service, viewing it merely as a cost to the business.

In many cases customer service is a cost to the business, however, survey after survey shows customer service as a core component of your brand. In certain cases some brands who understand the commercial value of great customer service, use it as an opportunity to cross sell and upsell, thus driving additional revenue into the business.

There are so many great statistics for investing in sales and service training once you look into it, it’s difficult to ignore. As an example studies show that 82% of customers leave because of a poor experience and of those 73% leave because of a reaction to rude staff.

Structured and well supported training can help your team meet your customers expectations and even exceed them. The right sales and service training can make your team more adept at winning customers’ trust, whilst boosting your teams confidence.

The best sales and service training programmes are designed to help companies move away from customer service and towards customer experiences.

How can Sales and Service Training help my team?

Often the biggest challenge in business is winning new customers. Given that’s the case it surely makes sense to do everything possible to not only keep those customers, but to maximise the revenue from them.

Most service issues have a simple root problem, for example, 55% of customers are leaving because of delays in resolving a dispute and 51% are leaving because of poor staff training. What’s possibly most important to note, is that all these problems can be easily remedied.

Sales and service training can give your team a system to measure, track and consistently improve your customer service and sales. This will help change the mindset of your team, enabling them to make a real impact by being able to identify what matters most and take action to improve.

When done correctly training can enhance your workplace culture substantially and provide your sales team with additional skills that can benefit them personally throughout their careers.

Why Sales and Service Training is Important — Sales and Service Training

Close More Deals and Learn New Skills

Most companies are unaware of the potential sales opportunities they have with existing customers. With repeat customer spending up to 67% more, sales and service training is more than just handling complaints and returns.

A big part of resolving customers problems should be finding new solutions to the problems customers encounter. In most cases the problems that customers experience are actually the best opportunities for cross selling and upselling.

Training can introduce your team to new strategies and tactics that they may simply never come across before. In addition to external input, there are often great lessons that can be shared internally, and these should be captured and documented for the benefit of others.

Training will help your team become more familiar with your own company’s best practices. In a well structured sales and service training programme, your staff will not only learn new techniques, but also find out why they are so effective and which situations they should be deployed in.

Benefit from External Sales Specialists

Often a key benefit of sales and service training is that it gives your team a chance to take onboard new ideas and strategies from outside the business. In many cases they are more open to learning from external facilitators with an in-depth knowledge than from internal colleagues.

Sales and service specialists can give your team more than just the skills they need to engage potential customers in meaningful conversations. They can help you explain on your customers terms why your products and service may be a good fit for them.

Sales and service training will help your team use the product knowledge and information that they have about your products and services, and turn this into powerful questions that make the buyer want to buy rather than them having to sell to them.

Retain the Best Staff

Many companies are now switched on to the fact that it’s easier to retain quality staff when you invest in training courses for them.

If your team members feel you aren’t investing in them, there’s a high possibility that they will move to a company that will. Investing in training shows your employees that you are eager to help them improve.

When staff receive quality training, they tend to feel more supported, which in turn boosts their confidence. Recruitment costs to replace team members can be incredibly expensive and take up an inordinate amount of management time.

It’s therefore important to try and keep hold of the employees that you have already invested in and continue to develop them.

benefits of sales and service training — Sales and Service Training

Should Managers attend Sales and Service Training?

Sales Managers are responsible for the day to day activities and performance of those activities for members in their team.

Your Managers set the bar in terms of what is acceptable performance and what is not. With this in mind, it’s important that sales managers attend every sales and service training along with their staff so they can hear the information first-hand.

When managers know exactly what’s covered and agreed during training, they can ensure their staff apply this knowledge to real-life scenarios and coach them if they are struggling.

Sales training often includes an element of goal-setting, which is yet another reason why it’s so important for managers to attend. It’s important for the managers to set realistic, yet achievable goals, rather than targets that are out of your team’s reach.

Failure to do this will simply harm the confidence of the team and demotivate them.

Increase your Customer Satisfaction Ratings

Training like everything else in your business needs to deliver a return on your investment. Whilst not everything should be judged by customer service scores, any service training should ultimately improve your customer satisfaction ratings.

Customer expectations are arguably higher than they have ever been and today’s customers expect to receive high-quality service more than ever before.

If they have a bad experience with a member of your team, they’re likely to make their opinions public and Social Media can amplify bad news like never before.

Customer Service training will not only teach your team to deliver the best customer experiences possible, but also turn your happy customers into advocates for your brand, thus generating new business referrals.

Omnichannel Customer Support

Modern customer service training often starts before your customers have even made a purchase. In most cases your customers first interaction with your brand is either your website or social media pages.

It’s important to include these as part of your wider customer experience strategy. This is supported by many statistics for example, using three channels instead of one for marketing campaigns results in a 287% higher purchase rate.

Providing Omnichannel customer support helps your team keep your clients happy across a range of channels and mediums. It can help them communicate with your customers better not only over traditional channels like the phone, but also via live chat, email, social media, SMS and other platforms.

The most successful customer service teams around today adopt an omnichannel approach with research showing that companies with an omnichannel approach experience a 23 fold increase in customer satisfaction.

We believe it’s really important to include these areas in your service programme. Many companies are failing to meet their customers’ expectations which makes it easier for you and your team to stand out from the crowd and win business from them.

Sales and Service Training Course — Sales and Service Training

Build Expert Product Knowledge

No matter the industry customers want to deal with experts and not agents who are simply following a call centre script.

Sales and service training encourages your team to get to know your products inside out so they can answer any and every relevant question they might be faced with.

If sales reps don’t have the knowledge that they require, they are more likely to leave customers feeling frustrated, with the customer going on to air their feedback publicly.

The more your reps know about your products and services, the better they can address customer pain points and explain why your solutions are the answer to their problems.

Enhance Customer Loyalty

Repeated studies show that customers tend to be much more loyal to companies that offer outstanding customer service. Many of today’s customers say that customer service is more important than price when they’re deciding who to do business with.

By investing in sales and service training, you can attract and retain more customers and gain a real edge over your competitors. Part of your overall programme should include how you plan to collect and share customer reviews.

With 70% of people taking action based on customer reviews this is an essential component of every sales and customer service training.

Resolve Disputes Quickly

Delays when resolving complaints can often be the straw that breaks the camels back with 55% of people leaving a brand because of delays in resolution.

Sales and service training can help your reps resolve complaints quickly which is important when dealing with angry and frustrated customers.

Training can help them show tactical empathy when they are dealing with an angry customer and enable them to steer the conversation in the right direction, no matter which medium they are communicating on.

Understanding active listening skills can turn your team into better, more helpful listeners that pay close attention to what your customers have to say and then use the skills and information they have to deliver the best outcome possible.

Why Customers stay after sales and service training — Sales and Service Training

Customer Service Training

Unlike traditional customer service training courses, Klozers provides the latest in business simulation software, that allows your team to experience a 2 year customer experience transformation program in 1 day.

Our state of the art business simulation goes way beyond basic communication skills and helps your sales team understand customer expectations, sales process, and what truly drives sales performance across the organisation.

Designed specifically as a holistic cross departmental our customer service courses are designed to engage everyone from your front line sales team, product and services teams and company management.

The customer service training includes two options as follows:

Enterprise Customer Service Training

SaaS Customer Success Training

Please contact us for further information.

In Summary

How important is retaining your existing customers?

How valuable would the extra revenue be if your customer service team were actively cross selling and upselling throughout their day?

Investing in sales and service training will make your staff and customers much happier. If you look after your staff they will in turn look after your customers.

If you feel you need to make improvements in these areas, please give us a call. We would love to work with you and make the sales and service goals you have in mind a reality.

12 Critical Objectives of Sales Management

by Iain Swanston

The Objectives of Sales Management

There are many objectives and goals for sales management and the importance of each will vary from business to business.

Business to business sales can be complex, with many variables and whilst the obvious objectives of revenue, profitability and growth are important it’s easy to argue a case for the plethora of other objectives such as customer satisfaction, team morale, employee retention.

Effective sales management is the key to running every successful sales team. When sales management is executed correctly, the rest of your enterprise benefits.

Sales managers are responsible for inspiring teams, leading by example, maximising profits and providing customers with the best experience to make sure they return for more.

We’ve resisted the urge to include the all to common piece around smart goals, because we assume your past all that and looking for something more meaningful.

So, we’ve listed below what we believe to be the main objectives of sales management, enjoy.

1. Sales Plan

We’ve listed sales plan at the very start because of it’s importance. Without a plan it’s difficult to track progress, meet or exceed your goals and align your sales team around those goals.

Quite simply, the sales plan ensures that not only is everyone on your company boat rowing in the same direction, it ensures that the boat itself is going in the right direction.

As with any objective or goal, the sales manager should be measured on the execution of the sales plan.

For some reason the majority of companies do not have a sales plan and miss out on the many benefits they bring.

2. Sales Strategy

Strategy is listed in the dictionary as “an approach” and although it sounds simple coming up with the best approach or strategy to how you gain maximum market penetration with the budget available to you is never easy.

At best if you nail your sales strategy sales will take off and at worst you will find that sales become like wading through treacle. An eternal hardship that consumes any profits you dreamed of as it sucks the life from your business.

Once you’ve agreed on a strategy you need to review this on a monthly basis and adjust as required.

Beware however, of changing your strategy before it has had a chance to mature or you might just end up going round in circles.

Once you’ve decided on your sales strategy the next challenge is aligning all your resources including the sales team and executing on that strategy.

3. Reporting and Metrics

Before you start to implement and share your strategy and sales plan you will need to give some thought as to how you are going to measure your progress.

Data is the new oil and Sales reporting is an essential part of the modern sales managers day to day activities.

Your reporting system should tell you everything from how well your reps are performing on a daily basis, to the cost of customer acquisition on your latest sales campaign.

Reports will tell you which areas you are succeeding in and areas need your attention. You should draw up a list of baseline sales metrics and then from there you can measure progress towards your targets.

In almost every scenario, you will be asked to generate Management Reports for your board and these will include things like your current sales funnel/sales pipeline which will provide information such as how many live deals you currently have in your funnel, the average size of each deal and the average length of the journey through the funnel.

It’s critically important that you not only can generate the right reports, but that you can interpret the results in a meaningful way.

4. Sales Performance

There is no one individual who has as much influence over sales than the sales manager.

Every day the Manager sets the bar between what is acceptable and what is not, in terms performance from their team.

They are responsible for not just managing, but also the training, coaching and development of the sales team.

Every salesperson wants to sell, every salesperson wants to be part of a winning team and the sales managers that succeed are those that focus on 2 things:

They do everything they can to help salespeople sell more
They do everything they can to develop their salespeople.

Unfortunately, as the manager has the power to make everything a success, they can also be architects of their own failure.

5. Key duties of the Sales Manager

Sales managers are tasked with developing sales teams, coordinating all operations within sales departments and identifying and implement the right sales techniques to deliver success.

Although the aim is to meet sales targets, it’s not uncommon for these aims to be surpassed.

The right sales management processes can give you a substantial edge over your competitors and ensure your company is thriving rather than simply surviving.

As a minimum the sales manager should address the following areas in their plan. Strategy, Process, People, Channels, Technology, Customers and Leadership

6. Team Morale

Morale is extremely important when it comes to building a winning sales team. The more inspired and confident your team are, the more they will achieve.

This is why it’s so important to ensure each member of your team feels listened to and respected. The easiest way to do this is by including them in the sales planning wherever possible.

Provide real-time information on as much as possible including things like the exact costs to the business to employ them, the profitability of your sales and how many deals they need to close to breakeven in terms of their own cost to the company.

Transparency is essential, so make sure each member of your team knows how well you’re currently performing.

What’s also important in terms of morale is being completely fair and not having any personal favourites in the team.

It’s normally easy for managers not to have favourites, however, many find it more difficult to deal with disruptive sales reps and often ignore them rather than look to resolve the problem.

Often times the most disruptive sales reps can be a top performer but you will still need to let them go if you feel they are damaging the overall morale and productivity of the team.

It’s incredibly important to foster a positive workplace culture where workplace friction is addressed as soon as it arises.

7. Setting realistic but ambitious targets

When it comes to setting your sales targets it’s vital to strike a balance between being ambitious and being realistic.

If your targets are unrealistically high, your sales team and your sales team fall so far behind that they don’t believe they can hit those targets, they will quickly become demotivated.

We recommend that you include your sales team as part of the planning process to help you set your sales targets.

By doing this you are much more likely to get buy in from the sales team and as the manager, you can still guide the team to create targets that are challenging.

Unrealistic targets will only serve to damage morale substantially and in turn, this will lower the overall performance of the team.

Managers should guide and coach their team members through the entire period of the targets to help ensure they remain on track and re-motivate them if they begin to lose confidence.

Managers typically have lots of experiences and skills that they can draw on from when they were a salesperson that will support their sales reps.

8. Building a sales funnel

Creating a sales funnel that continually is topped up with new, high quality sales leads is one of the most important objectives of sales management.

A sales funnel, also known as a pipeline is used to outline each step a customer takes throughout their journey towards making a purchase.

In B2B sales the salespeople are responsible for moving the deals or opportunities through the sales funnel.

There is nothing more demotivating to sales reps than the struggle to fill the sales funnel with new leads. It’s therefore important that you work with your marketing team to ensure a continuous flow of good quality sales leads.

If you are using Sales Development Reps (SDRs) to generate their own sales leads then you must give them the strategies and tactics to generate those leads.

Tactics like cold calling and cold email campaigns do work but they on their own it is a slow way to scale your business. As the sales manager it’s your responsibility to break the entire sales process down into easy, manageable stages.

Sales funnels enable salespeople to remain organised and in control, especially when used in conjunction with a good CRM system.

With the right CRM dashboards in place Sales reps can easily see the progress they have already made towards their sales targets.

This in turn will inspire them to continue focussing on moving deals through the sales funnel.

9. When can I expect results?

In our experience every overnight success has taken years of hard work to get there. With that said, you should see early indications of success in months, not years.

It’s important to manage expectations and collectively agree what success looks like in the initial phases.

This is why we are such advocates of creating a sales plan that everyone can align themselves behind.

Your sales plan should identify what we call the lead indicators rather than the lag indicators for success and you can start tracking them immediately.

It’s unlikely your sales management will deliver exceptional results immediately but with planning, patience and persistence you will slowly turn the ship around.

Trial-and-error can play a big role in helping you create the right sales process for you.

Even when you start seeing the results that you’ve been aiming for, you should always be prepared to make amendments as customer behaviours and requirements, technology and markets change.

10. Motivating your Sales Team

As a sales manager, you will be tasked with overseeing things like data, technology, processes and sales pipelines which you may or may not find easy.

However, often the biggest challenge is people management and listening to your team is very important.

It’s essential to ask your team what drives them and what their personal goals are and then tie them into your own business objectives.

Not every member of your sales team will be motivated by money alone, so try to find out what else drives them and why they were interested in a career in sales in the first place.

It’s also essential to deliver additional support for those members working remotely during any lockdown period.

Some team members will be comfortable working from home, whilst others will prefer to be out in the field visiting customers and working in a busy office environment.

11. Do great salespeople make great sales managers?

One problem many companies encounter is that not all great salespeople make a fantastic sales manager.

Being a sales manager requires a whole host of different skills not required by salespeople, and it may take time to start seeing success once you’ve moved from making sales to overseeing them.

Most of the key tasks assigned to sales managers are strategic versus the tactical skills required by salespeople.

For example, data analysis is hugely important for every sales manager, as is planning, strategy and people management.

In addition, identifying realistic goals, hiring the right salespeople, creating incentives, arranging ongoing training and learning and matching the right kind of guidance to specific individuals in your team are all important.

12. Learning & Development

It’s easy to overlook training as a Sales Manager because there never seems to be any free time for developing your team or indeed yourself.

Training falls into the category of important/not urgent and because of this it often gets overlooked. In nearly every case the salespeople who don’t want training are those that need it the most.

Learning and development starts by hiring the right salespeople and only recruiting those who are driven and determined with great people skills.

The team that you inherit may be very different from this and it’s your objective as the sales manager to improve the team that you’re working with over the coming months or years.

It’s also important to seek out coachable people as these people are great learners and will continuously improve given the right support.

You will encounter people that already have good sales skills but seem unwilling to continue learning or taking feedback and this can become a problem.

These people not only don’t want to learn but they don’t want others to learn either and can sabotage and undermine your leadership.

Under these circumstances, as long as you have done everything possible to try and support these people if they still refuse then you will have no alternative to letting them go.

If you’re able to offer real-time information that you can display in the workplace, you should certainly do this as this creates incentives and keeps your salespeople’s eyes on the ball.

Transparency is essential, so make sure each member of your team knows how well you’re currently performing.

In conclusion

Sales managers are arguably the single most important part of your sales team and the right manager will help you achieve outstanding results when they build an exceptional and focussed team that they take the time to support.

They will ensure the organisation has the right people, structures, technology and sales processes in place progress which can be tracked and clearly visible for all the stakeholders.

By ensuring team members remain willing to learn and committing to learning more themselves, sales managers can deliver real success, even in the most competitive markets.

Sales Negotiation Training

by Iain Swanston

Key Negotiation Skills – Introduction

There is a common misconception that sales negotiation skills are only required towards the end of the sales process. The part in every sales process where costs and terms are agreed. Whilst this is undoubtedly true, it’s also true that the best salespeople are negotiating all the way through the sales process. In fact every Professional salesperson negotiates, every single day which is why it’s an important part of any training programme.

From negotiating with their children on what to have for breakfast, to negotiating with a Partner on where to go for dinner. In between times they will negotiate workloads with their line managers, negotiate meeting times with co-workers, negotiate dates & times for appointments with prospects and lastly negotiating sales contracts, project delivery and aftercare contracts. In short, Negotiation is actually unavoidable, and the ability to Negotiate is a core skill for every Salesperson.

Planning for Sales Negotiations

Like most things in life when it comes to Negotiation knowledge is power. The more information you have and better prepared you are then the more likely you will achieve a successful negotiation. Follow the information below to discover how to research and plan your next negotiation.

Sales Negotiation Goals

These are the needs, wants and desires of the parties involved in the negotiation. In business this can be complicated as not only may both sides have differing goals, but parties within each side may have differing and even conflicting Goals.

Goals can be subjective for example “We need to increase the confidence of our people.” or they can be more objective like “We need to reduce our overheads by 10 this quarter”. Either way it’s important to know both your own Goals and that of the other side. Important questions you must ask are:

Have we identified all the Goals?
What are the Prioritised Goals?
What are the Business Goals?
What are the Personal Goals?
Are there conflicting Goals?

Business Goals Examples	Personal Goals Examples
Strategic	Security
Change	Satisfaction
Growth	Peer Pressure
Improvement	Financial Gain

Please note Goals are NOT the same as outcomes.

Example:

Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.

The Outcome is the Negotiated agreement that they come to.

Negotiation Options

These are all the possible solutions that satisfy the goals of both parties. They are all possibilities that both parties agree or say Yes to.

By investing time to explore all the Options then you are more likely to find:

Alternative solutions
Enable both parties to achieve their goals
Reach the Best Possible Agreement (BPA)

Example:

Goals – George is 65 years old and would like to retire (Goal). In order to fund his retirement he needs to sell his business but no one wants to invest a large sum of capital. Mike would like to buy a business (Goal) but does not have any capital to invest.

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

Criteria for Negotiation

Criteria are the “terms” of any possible Option

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

Criteria – George needs to guarantee a minimum payment every month regardless of the profitability of that month. Mike needs to ensure ensure he will not be liable for any warranty, liability or compensations claims from the period before he take responsibility/ownership of the business.

Get expert Sales Negotiation Training from our Sales Coaches

Sales Negotiation Coaching — Sales Negotiation Training

CNA – Cost of No Agreement

Not all Negotiations end in an agreement, it is therefore vital before entering into any Negotiation that you first work out what the Cost of No Agreement is for both parties. The costs of no agreement can be both Objective and Subjective.

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

CNA – George does not have the financial resources to retire (Objective) however he has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his business for three years and is now desperate (Subjective) for a solution. Mike is keen to buy a business (Objective) but knows there are hundreds of businesses for sale and he is pretty relaxed (Subjective) if this deal doesn’t go through another one will come along.

The Subjective Cost of No Agreement can be more powerful than the Objective ones as people make decisions emotionally and then justify their position intellectually afterwards.

BATNA – Best Alternative to No Agreement

Not all Negotiations end in an Agreement, it is therefore vital before entering into any Negotiations that you first work out what the Best Alternative to No Agreement is. In some cases you may well experience that the other party is so entrenched in their position that they have no desire to Negotiate. BATNA is typically but not always, an alternative course of action that can be taken if no agreement is reached.

BATNA helps you prepare for a Negotiation by:

Helps prevent you from agreeing to something you will regret
Defining your Minimum Possible Agreement (MPA)
Provides you with a Plan B
Helps prevent you from over or underestimating the your own and the other party’s position
Helps you understand where the leverage is
Identifying alternative Options

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

CNA – George does not have the financial resources to retire (CNA) and has been trying unsuccessfully to sell his business for three years and is now desperate for a solution. Mike is keen to buy a business and has spent £3,000 with Solicitors and Accountants thus far completing his due diligence on the company.

BATNA – George is in discussion with his Lawyers to explore the possibilities of a Management Buyout for the business. Mike knows there are hundreds of businesses for sale and he is pretty relaxed if this deal doesn’t go through another one will come along.

Concessions for Negotiation

A concession is something given to the other party in furtherance of the agreement. These concessions should be identified in advance and segmented for both parties in terms of:

High Value – High Cost

High Value – Low Cost

Remember – Never give anything away without receiving something of equal or greater value in return.

Example:

Option – George can sell his business to Mike but rather than invest a lump sum he agrees to pay George on a Monthly basis from the profits for the next 5 years and hence fund his retirement.

Concessions – George is prepared to spend 3 months of his time ensuring during the handover period which is Low Cost to him as he will be retired but High Value to Mike as he is new to the industry and recognises the benefit of George’s experience.

Mike is prepared to move quickly which has no cost to him however this is High Value to George as the last thing he wants is a long protracted sale.

Negotiation Strategies

Aggressive Tactics

Shoot the hostage
- This strategy is extremely aggressive as it involves an immediate offer to walk away with no deal which is designed to throw and unsettle the other party. This is often delivered in a reluctant tone “we don’t want to do this but…”,
Delaying tactics
- When time is clearly on one parties side the process can often be deliberately slowed which is extremely effective when there are cost implications if talks over run. This tactic also applies if the other party has another meeting or needs to leave. The negotiator deliberately talks around the subject to delay the real conversation and then uses time to put pressure on the other party to come to an agreement.
Poor Me
- This strategy is used to play the false victim that needs rescued by the other party.
Last Minute.com
- As the name suggests this strategy involves the Negotiator agreeing to a solution right up until they are required to sign and then withdrawing. The withdrawal is usually followed up quickly with a counter offer at dramatically reduced terms.
Misleading/lying
- Often Negotiators will make exaggerated claims or even lie so without hard data to support them you should discount these. They may also issue warnings and threats or make matters personal to unbalance you.
Missing People
- Everyone knows the importance of having all the Decision Makers in the room but Negotiators may even turn up with complete strangers. In sales some companies will remove Sales People from the final negotiations. If the Sales People have a relationship with the other party they could be more empathetic and weaker negotiators. Turning up without warning with complete strangers also unbalances the other party.

Co-operative Tactics

Agree on the Process
- Spend time up front agreeing the process and format of the Negotiations including what’s in scope and what’s not.
Win Win Agreements
- Most professional Negotiators accept that any final agreement must be fair and sustainable for the life of the time period. In most business scenarios it should never be win at all costs as this destroys relationships.
Matching Rights
- Offer the other party the right to match any solution that you receive. For example if one of two business partners decides to sell their shares to another party they may have the agreement that the other party gets first refusal if they match the offer.
Contingent Agreements
- These are simply agreements based on future events. Financial Bonus may be tied to Performance. Football transfer fees can be include Contingent Agreements that provides the selling club additional revenue if a player is sold on and or if a player is capped by their country or simply makes a certain number of appearances.
Multiple Offers
- When multiple offers are placed on the table this allows both parties to indicate preferences and encourages creativity as a winning hybrid offer can be formed. Placing one offer on the table often leads to a refusal and a stall in the process.

Sales Negotiation Checklist

1. Be prepared to walk away. Sales Negotiation is 70% Mindset and 30% Strategy and unless you are prepared to walk away, no strategy will help you.

2. It’s not what you charge it’s what your worth. Thoroughly research the market and discuss with the buyer the Value you bring to the table?

3. Take council from colleagues and external advisors and agree a pre-meeting strategy for the negotiations then PRACTICE.

4. Never give anything away without receiving something of equal or greater value in return.

5. Never enter a Negotiation without first providing your price and outline terms in advance, to anchor the prospect to a higher number and terms.

6. Where possible in high value deals do not include your sales people in Negotiations, as they will be emotionally involved in the sale and not objective.

7. Ensure everyone in your team have agreed in advance your trade-offs, your concessions, and your best alternative to a negotiated settlement.

8. You must be comfortable with silence and at most only talk 30% of the time, as the more you talk the more information you are giving away.

9. If it’s not Win Win then you run the danger of the prospect backing out or failing to implement your agreement, then the lawyers are the only winners.

10. Negotiation is between human beings, you must therefore be familiar with Human Psychology, DiSC, Neuro Linguistic and Programming.

How to Manage Sales Activity

by Iain Swanston

How to Build a SaaS Sales Funnel

by Iain Swanston

1. What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a sequence of actions, events or stages that a user goes through before purchasing a product or service. Sales funnels are designed to allow marketers to track, record and optimise the sales process to improve results.

You can learn more about our SaaS sales training here.

2. How to build a SaaS Sales Funnel

Your SaaS sales funnel is an essential part of your Apps success. If you’re offering SaaS apps then creating a repeatable, scalable and trackable sales funnel is one of the important steps that you need to take.

Sounds easy? Then think again. The sales funnel is where many start-ups transitioning into revenue generation struggle, and in many cases fail.

Before starting to build your funnel it’s worth first considering where you are in your app journey.

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

Don’t buy Sales Training until you’ve watched this video…

3. The three main stage of SaaS development

Unfortunately, in sales there is never a one size fits all solution, and the starting point for how to build a SaaS sales funnel is dependent on where you are, in the terms of the three main stages of a SaaS business?

Are you at:
Phase 1: the start of the journey whereby the Founder and primary team are still trying to establish product/market fit.

Phase 2: where the founder and primary team members have proven product/market fit and are proving they can implement systems and processes that others can use to sell.

Phase 3, the final hurdle where you have a proven product market fit, you’ve identified and proven the right systems and processes for scaling and you are now ready to scale your sales, focus on client acquisition and build up your MRR.

The strategies you use for building a SaaS sales funnel will vary depending on exactly what you learned in Step 1 above.

So for the purposes of this exercise, I will assume you are at Step 1. If you are still struggling to build a sales funnel at steps 2 and 3 then either you missed something at step 1, or something has changed that has made everything you learned at step 1 stop working.

4. Build a marketing funnel before your sales funnel

With any business it’s important that you provide the optimal conditions for your sales team to be successful. In the SaaS world it’s not enough to have a great website, you need a website that:

a) can be found by your products and services in the major search engines – Google, Bing, Yahoo & YouTube
b) can be found by the problems you solve in the major search engines – Google, Bing, Yahoo & YouTube
c) can convert web traffic to marketing qualified leads

Many companies ignore this and rush to build an outbound sales team. The fact is that every potential prospect that your outbound Team gets interested will then go to your website to do further research.

Unless the web experience is equal to or greater than the prospects experience with your outbound team they will immediately switch off.

To build a marketing funnel you must create “compelling user first content”. This is content that the user is actively searching for not the content that your sales and marketing team want to push.

You SaaS marketing funnel is an essential part of your Inbound sales strategy. To do this successfully you will need to create high quality content at each stage of the buyer journey as shown below.

The content should subtly tell your brand story and the success you have brought to other users. Turn your early adopters into the Heroes not you.

TOFU – Top of funnel
The first part of your sales funnel otherwise known as TOFU is the awareness stage of the funnel. The prospect is aware of the problems they have and is investigating solutions.

Your website must have content that speaks to these problems and position your company as the Subject Matter Experts. The most popular content here would be:

How to guides
Explainer videos
Blog posts
Lead Magnets

At this stage, the prospect is in research mode, not buying mode and is simply gathering information.

Your prospect may not even be interested in solutions at this stage as they are still trying to accurately self-diagnose their own problems. It’s unlikely that your prospect will want to talk to sales at this stage.

We recommend you use marketing automation to track which articles/pages your prospects enter the site on as this is the problem that is top of mind for them. Knowing this can make it easier for sales to have a relevant conversation with them.

You may also have some success engaging the prospect with chatbots on your site, however many will want to remain anonymous at this stage.

Middle of Funnel
The middle of your sales funnel is when prospects start to evaluate specific solutions based on what they learned in stage 1. Middle of funnel content would include:

Presentations
Demonstrations
Case Studies

In practical terms they will have created some form of shortlist of potential suppliers, and they will then dig deeper into the details of each potential solution.

At this stage the prospect may still not engage with you as they are often simply researching on behalf of other people within their own organisation and their priority is still information gathering.

Bottom of Funnel
By the time your prospect has reached the bottom of your marketing funnel in many cases they have already “bought into” one particular supplier or solution.

They have made their decision largely on their web experience of the brand, your sales messaging and your ability to position yourself not only as a though leader but as a thought leader in that understands their problems.

Bottom of Funnel content would included things like:

Pricing
Comparison tables
Testimonials
Reviews

For simpler lower priced solutions you will find they are now ready to take a trial if you offer a strong Call to Action (CTA), whilst for the more expensive and complex solutions they will now engage with sales.

The image below shows where a simple marketing funnel transitions into a shopping cart and the more complex B2B sale transitions into a lead for sales.

Success lies not in choosing the right model, but building your own model based on data and trial and error.

Most marketing software now tracks user behaviour on your website and may use lead scoring to alert salespeople when the best time to pro-actively reach out to prospects.

From our own experience the timing is nearly always to early and a well-defined lead nurturing programme is equally effective.

In order to do this you should build into your marketing an at least three different lead magnets that will help you turn your web visitors into a subscriber so you can keep in touch.

5. Advertising to fill your Sales Funnel

Many companies successfully fill their sales funnel via advertising. Digital advertising has matured to a level that allows significant tracking and reporting allowing you to within a matter of weeks understand what your Conversion Ratio and CAC will be.

In the first instance we would advocate “Re-targeting Campaigns”. This is simply the process of placing adds in front of people who have already visited your website.

Studies show retargeting is seven times more effective than new campaigns which is why we advocate this as a starting point.

This strategy works extremely well with a strong content marketing campaign. The most popular add channel for B2B would be LinkedIn, however, many companies have also done well with Facebook and Instagram.

Needless to say this would be defined by your audience. Advertising can be used in simple funnels to drive sales and more complex ones to drive new enquiries for sales reps.

More complex sales may need a defined sequence whereby users click on and advert to receive a lead magnet with each lead costing $3.

If you subsequently manage to convert 5% of these new leads you can then attribute $60 per sale from advertising to your CAC.

You can build a trackable sequence or model from any activity not just advertising. For example, events, webinars and telesales allowing you to understand which activities are the most cost effective not only at filling your funnel, but actually converting into orders.

6. How to Build a SaaS Sales Funnel

Your sales funnel will vary depending on your sales strategy. Are you selling your App direct or are you selling through partners? Which channels have you decided to focus on initially?

1. Identify your Perfect Prospect Profile. This is the sales reps version of a marketing persona. It includes everything that a marketing persona would include, plus some additional information that helps sales understand and communicate at a deeper level with the prospect.

2. Build your sales messaging. Part of the product/market fit is understanding what business and or personal problem your product solves.

In our experience the most successful SaaS services are business solutions that solve business problems.

Once you understand how this relates to your own product/service at a deep level you can start to build your sales messaging.

This is the words and nuanced language you have proven that prospects connect with. It’s not enough to know about your own business and solutions, you should know about your customers.

You should know exactly how your solution helps your customer save money, make money and make their life easier.

3. Lead Generation Campaign.

Once you have identified your target prospects and built your sales messaging you will need to start work on a Lead Generation campaign.

There are two main approaches to Lead Generation as follows:

a) Inbound Lead Generation. Inbound lead generation campaigns are where the prospect contacts you first. The may fill out a form on your web page, telephone you or email you. In order to generate inbound sales leads you will need to do some form of content creation, ad campaigns, webinars, referral programmes or SEO.

b) Outbound lead generation. Outbound lead generation campaigns are where you reach out to prospects via telephone, email, direct mail, events or account based marketing. Outbound campaigns invariably means you will have to build an outbound says team which can be expensive.

The majority of SaaS companies use a combination of inbound and outbound, however, they nearly always have an emphasis on one more than the other.

As a very rough guide, SaaS services that are lower cost and targeting SMEs, are marketing led and have a predominantly Inbound focus.

SaaS services that are more expensing and targeting Mid-Market to Enterprise organisations will have a more sales led approach via Account Based Marketing.

7. What are the Stages of a SaaS Sales Funnel?

The stages of your sales funnel are simply a series of steps that your prospects move through to place an order.

These stages can vary greatly and there is no one funnel that you can apply to every app. Even if the stages are the same the method by which you move prospects through the funnel may vary.

Your sales funnel is a great place to start collecting data in order to measure performance and make improvements over time.

In general, prospects should move through the sales funnel as quickly as possible – this is called the sales cycle or pipe speed.

Measuring the speed that prospects move through the cycle allows you to identify blockages in your funnel and areas where prospects slow down.

These “sticking” points are where you should look to make improvements.

8. When do I demo my SaaS product to customers?

The timing of SaaS app demos within the sales process has been the subject of discussion for many companies.

The answer unfortunately to the question is “it depends”. Many companies successfully demo their app at the start of the sales process, however, there are equally many who demo at the start and then have their prospects disappear into the black hole of voice mail and unanswered emails.

In short the cheaper and simpler the solution, then the earlier in the process you can demo and the more expensive and complex the solution the demo should be pushed as far back in the selling process as possible.

The reality is that there is a tendency for Entrepreneurs and salespeople to rush to demo their app, hoping the demo will convince the prospect to sign up.

Even if the prospect is qualified and a good fit, a demo without any form of diagnosis of the prospects pain is in danger of losing the prospect.

Your prospect needs to know that you know and that you understand their world. This can only be achieved via intelligent and targeted questioning. If you want to speed the sale up, slow the sale down.

The demo is usually the salespersons greatest point of leverage and if you give it away to soon you will lose the leverage and in all likelihood the prospect.

As a general rule of thumb – push the app demo as far back in your sales process as possible.

Demos cost time and money especially for complex sales where more often than not a bespoke demo is required.

Any bespoke demo must only be delivered to the senior decision makers on the prospects buying team. If appropriate you can even have two demos within the sales process – there are no rules other than if it works do it.

Most sales reps make the mistake of using this part of the sales process to explain the benefits of the product in more detail.

When you’re telling you’re not selling. Use intelligent probing questions to get the prospect to tell you how the solution will solve their business pain.

You should avoid talking about features that you believe to be relevant to them. If you didn’t uncover this in the discovery stage of the sales process it’s inherently risky to introduce anything new further down the process.

For simpler lower priced solutions you will find they are now ready to take a trial, whilst for the more expensive and complex solutions they will now engage with a sales rep.

In order to demonstrate they have undertaken due diligence they will always speak to two or three potential suppliers.

This isn’t necessarily to beat a supplier down on price, but sometimes they need to validate to the wider purchasing group within their organisation why they have a preference.

App trials are also a good way to get users to sign up, however, the conversion ratio of trials to close is usually poor in most SaaS cases.

Depending on the pricing you could offer a managed trial, so they can evaluate your software while you manage them further down the sales process.

During a trial, the prospect can see how the product will work for them in practice. It’s important to time the trial wisely and ensure you have agreed in advance what happens if the trial is successful.

We’ve created the graphic above to try to explain visually how this might work for your organisation.

It’s worth noting in the example, the majority of your CAC will be marketing, whereas in the more complex funnel your costs will include marketing, sales + customer onboarding.

9. SaaS Sales Funnel examples

The sales funnels below are examples. You should NOT replicate these unless they fit with your sales process.

They are designed to be a starting point for those looking to develop a sales funnel.

As you can see from the graphic, there are many alternatives to the stages that go to make up your sales funnel depending on the type of funnel you are creating.

For purely digital funnels you could have:

Lead Magnet Landing page – where prospects arrive after clicking on your advert
Confirmation Page – confirming your free offer, trial or purchase
Upsell page – where prospects have an opportunity to add additional services or upgrade
Checkout page – where prospects pay for the service
Congrats or Thank You page – where you can sign post prospects with the appropriate next steps.

10. SaaS sales funnel metrics

When it comes to metrics we believe these are the common sales operations metrics and KPIs that most people are familiar with. Needless to say these metrics are important and you should be recording and reporting on them.

LTT – Lead to trial conversion
This is the number of leads who have converted to a trial.

DCR – Demo conversion ratio
The number of demos that successfully convert to the next stage in the sales process.

TTS – Trial to sale conversion
This is the number of prospects on the free trial who have converted to paying customers.

LTV – Lifetime Value of the customer
This is the average total value a customer will spend before leaving the service. Ironically this can be more difficult to measure the better your product is because, without customers leaving you will not know how long they stay and their total value to the business.

Churn – Number of customers leaving
Customers will leave and that’s not always a bad thing. If the customers who leave fit your ICP (Ideal Client Profile) then you have a problem. Customers who leave that don’t fit your ICP may be freeing up valuable resource that can be spent on your ICP.

MRR – Monthly recurring revenue
The monthly recurring revenue gives you an overview of your success, however, it’s only an overview and you need to look at the details within the data to gain a more accurate picture.

ARR – Annual recurring revenue
The annual recurring revenue gives a good overview of the business, but like the MRR you should study all the data to obtain a more accurate picture on the health of your venture.

Sales Cycle – The time from initial contact through to a closed order
This is typically short for lower value simpler solutions and longer for complex Enterprise sales. For example a sales to a Tier 1 bank may take 18 months from initial contact to close.

CAC – Customer Acquisition Cost
It’s important to understand how much it costs you to acquire a single customer. In an ideal world you would discover this in the initial phases of the business when you are proving the value proposition. Without this figure it’s impossible to put in the systems and processes to scale the business as you won’t know how much you can spend on the front end marketing and sales.

Negative Churn –
Negative churn is a powerful growth metric which indicates that the revenue from upselling and cross selling existing customers out strips the revenue lost when customers leave.

11. SaaS Proposal submissions

After the final demo, you should never offer to send a proposal.

Proposals cost time and money and if your prospect is interested they will ask you for a proposal.

If your prospect doesn’t ask you for a proposal then it tells you that they aren’t interested in working with you and you need to move back up the sales process to understand where you have gone wrong.

When the sales process stalls it’s rarely because of something you have done wrong at that moment – more often, it’s something you missed earlier on in the sales process.

Make sure you’re confident all the benefits of the software have been clearly explained to them and mapped out against their stated needs.

Where possible, always get your White Knight to help you co-create the proposal and sense check a draft version with them in advance of sending the official copy.

Before sending your proposal you must have a clear understanding of what the next steps are if you win or lose.

Without this you are most likely to spend the next three months chasing ghosts in voice mail.

12. Pricing your SaaS contracts

Many companies provide limited or no pricing at all on their website because they don’t want their competitors to see their pricing, or they think it will scare away potential customers.

You should be proud of your price and the value you bring. Let the competition undercut you and tie up all their resources on unprofitable deals.

People rarely buy the cheapest solution, so allow your prospects to undercut you.

If you’re still anxious about having your pricing on your website then think about how you feel when you are researching a solution you are interested in only to find the pricing page is littered with POA.

If you’re like most people you find this really annoying and quickly move on to the next potential supplier.

Lastly, another advantage of proudly displaying your pricing is that it qualifies out anyone who is not prepared to invest at that level.

This can save you lots of time and resources with prospects who simply have a different budget level.

There are numerous pricing strategies available to you, however, from our experience the only thing that is guaranteed, is that you will change your pricing.

As a basic rule of thumb if your prices are set too high for a short-term contract or paid trial, the prospect may fail to experience the full benefits of the software before the contract comes to an end, and they may decide not to renew.

Where possible you should reward prospects during the trial period for adding information and using the service.

For example, offer a shorter trial and incentivise users if they complete their profile/account set up.

Offer a further free period encourage them to use the product for example if they upload data into the system.

The idea is to “onboard” your new users step by step and make your product as sticky as possible.
If the prospect does want to go ahead you should use contracts with digital signature to speed up the sales process.

Never send contracts in emails or links to digital contracts as these can be easily ignored.

Arrange to get the prospect on the phone and talk through the contract with them. Once they have agreed to everything in the contract simply ask them to sign while you have them on the phone.

This way you retain control of the sales process.

13. Why the sales funnel is so important for SaaS providers

Many businesses have failed after struggling to implement a sales funnel. Marketing and selling SaaS products can be incredibly challenging, and chances are your target customers are already overwhelmed with offers from competing software vendors.

Think about which part of the buyers existing budget you are going to win revenue from. What direct or indirect competitors will you take budget away from?

You may be competing with some of the biggest and most powerful brands in the world that are providing generic solutions to the same problems you solve.

This means you need to offer something distinctive that your customers actually require.

A CB Insights study said 42% of SaaS start-ups fail because they’re offering products their target customers don’t need.

Convincing potential customers your software offers genuine value is essential.

14. Managing prospects expectations

Creating a sales funnel is all about building a journey all the way from web visitor, to subscriber and through demos and trails and ending with the contract being signed.

Your sales funnel should emphasise each of the key stages your prospects will travel through on their way to an agreement being made.

Be open, upfront and share the stages of the process in advance with your prospects.
You should pay close attention to any points of friction that might occur as your prospects travel through your sales pipeline.

This will give you the opportunity to make improvements to your funnel moving forward.
What’s most important is that you record all the data points in your sales funnel.

This will help you make decisions on facts rather than your gut feelings. It can take time for your sales funnel to become fully effective, and you may need to make several refinements before you have a truly optimised sales funnel.

Many customers don’t have a rich understanding of what they need when they first encounter you. Provide solutions not just products by helping prospects make the connection between the two.

What’s also true is users often buy what they want not what they need.

This is why it’s so important to ask targeted questions in order that you can accurately determine what their needs are so you can position your software in the most favourable way.

These questions will also tell you how near or far away they are to making a decision.

15. The Rise of SaaS solutions

It seems like everything in the world is now powered online by SaaS Applications. From Netflix and Amazon Prime to LinkedIn and Microsoft M365 we are now surrounded by SaaS solutions of one description or another.

Financially SaaS makes sense as it avoids heavy capital expenditure up front and de-risks the solution.

After all if it doesn’t work you are typically only ever locked in to a maximum of 12 months. Other advantages of SaaS include the way that it is normally quick to deploy and requires no maintenance on the part of the client.

Upgrades are normally delivered automatically, with clients generally being offered guaranteed levels of service.

Backups and data recovery are usually carried out on behalf of the client, so they can focus on what they do best, safe in the knowledge that everything’s being handled by the software developers themselves.

Lockdown has turbo charged SaaS
Remote working was on the rise even before the pandemic, so the fact that SaaS products allow individuals to work and collaborate from anywhere has only served to embed SaaS even deeper in our every day lives.

There are thousands of new products SaaS products being developed in every country around the world so competition is fierce, however, there is no apparent end to the appetite of consumers and business to SaaS solutions.

A coherent sales funnel could be the difference between your product being a viral success and being forced to return to the drawing board.

SaaS Sales Training Course Find out more & book

Group Sales Training – everything you need to know

by Iain Swanston

What makes a great Sales Manager?

by Iain Swanston

Sales execution standards

What Makes a Great Sales Manager? Standards, Coaching and Consistent Execution

Great sales managers make good selling behaviour visible, coachable and repeatable. They develop people, not just reports.

By Iain Swanston, Founder, Klozers · Updated 14 October 2026

A sales outcome alone does not identify the behaviour that needs coaching.

In short

A great sales manager defines what good selling looks like, develops people through observation and coaching, and creates accountability for applying those behaviours in real customer opportunities. They assess results without confusing them with the underlying capability, and use evidence to decide when someone needs clearer expectations, practice, support or a change in approach.

Key takeaways

Great sales managers make expectations observable before reviewing performance.
Closed revenue is a result; selling behaviours provide earlier evidence for coaching.
Training builds knowledge and skills, coaching develops application, and inspection checks execution.
Fair management decisions depend on clear standards, support and consistent evidence.

What makes a great sales manager?

A great sales manager turns the organisation’s commercial expectations into observable selling behaviours. They know which results matter, but they do not assume a missed target explains itself. They ask what the salesperson did, what the customer did and which decisions influenced progress.

This approach is particularly important when sales cycles are long. A manager who judges only closed revenue may identify a problem too late to provide useful support. The manager must still inspect revenue and pipeline, but should also examine the quality of the work behind them.

Why does a strong salesperson not automatically become a strong manager?

Selling and managing require different capabilities. An experienced seller may recognise a weak discovery conversation instinctively, yet struggle to explain precisely what was missing or help another person improve. Management requires making effective practice explicit, teaching it, observing its application and providing useful feedback.

Promoting a high performer without developing these management capabilities can leave a team dependent on the manager’s personal judgement. The objective is not to reproduce the manager’s personality. It is to help different people perform the behaviours that matter in their roles.

How do great sales managers establish clear selling standards?

They start with the work. Which practices are associated with effective customer conversations and sound deal decisions in this organisation? What do experienced, successful sellers actually do? Which behaviours are relevant across the team, and which vary by market or role?

Klozers’ inside-out approach begins by identifying useful existing practices before introducing new methods. Gold Selling Standards provide a commercial destination for organisations that want to define and reinforce their expectations.

A useful standard describes observable work, not personality. “Shows commercial curiosity” is difficult to assess consistently. “Tests the customer’s intended outcome and records the agreed next step” gives a manager something to observe and discuss. Standards should be adapted to the role and applied fairly.

Why should managers distinguish behaviours from results?

Results tell leaders whether commercial goals have been achieved. Behaviours help managers investigate why performance differs and what support may be useful. A deal that stalls could involve poor qualification, an unresolved buying-group issue, a customer change or circumstances beyond the seller’s control.

The manager should not assume a single cause. Reviewing CRM notes, account plans and actual customer interactions can provide a stronger basis for discussion than either a dashboard or a manager’s impression.

The first illustration makes this distinction: an unsuccessful outcome is not itself evidence that a particular skill is missing.

Sales management development

Turn management expectations into consistent practice.

Discuss the standards, coaching routines and practical support your managers need to develop their teams.

How does coaching develop capability rather than simply inspect activity?

Inspection establishes what happened. Coaching helps the salesperson understand a gap, practise a better approach and apply it in a live opportunity. Training can introduce knowledge and skills, but a manager still needs to observe how those skills are used in the team’s own selling environment.

A productive coaching conversation focuses on evidence: what was the intended customer outcome, what did the seller ask, what did the customer confirm and what should happen next? The manager agrees a specific improvement and checks its application later. This is different from telling someone to make more calls or update their pipeline.

How can a manager create accountability without micromanagement?

Accountability requires a clear expectation, a reasonable opportunity to apply it and a review of what actually happened. It does not require the manager to control every customer interaction. Where a seller demonstrates sound judgement and reliable execution, the manager can provide autonomy while retaining visibility of important commitments.

Where performance falls short, the manager should distinguish willingness, skill, clarity of expectations, available resources and external constraints. Treating every gap as a motivation problem produces poor diagnoses.

What does fair, evidence-based performance management look like?

The management principles in Klozers’ additional sales leadership briefs are relevant here: set standards in advance, observe behaviour, record reviews and give the person a fair opportunity to understand and improve. Use the same relevant standard from hiring through onboarding and subsequent coaching rather than changing expectations retrospectively.

Managers should work with HR and follow the employer’s policies where decisions could affect employment. Individual circumstances and reasonable adjustments must be considered. This article provides management guidance, not employment-law advice.

The second illustration shows one example of keeping a behaviour consistent while changing the evidence gathered at different stages of development.

Illustrative management practice: maintain the behaviour standard while gathering appropriate evidence at each stage.

How should managers balance targets and long-term people development?

Short-term commercial targets remain essential. However, a manager who concentrates only on the current month can neglect the capability that supports future execution. Strong management connects both: understand the outcome, identify the relevant behaviour, provide practice and coaching, and inspect whether it is being applied.

Development does not guarantee revenue growth. Customer demand, product-market fit, competitive conditions and many other factors influence results. Managers can nevertheless create better conditions for effective selling by making standards explicit and supporting their consistent use.

How can organisations develop better sales managers?

Begin with a realistic assessment of what managers do now. Observe how they conduct pipeline reviews, provide feedback, coach live opportunities and address underperformance. Identify the practices worth retaining and the gaps that require support.

Then agree a small number of observable management behaviours, practise them on real work and review their application. Sales management and coaching for sales leaders provide related context. The goal is a consistent standard of management, not a script that removes judgement.

Do this on Monday

Use a short management review to make expectations and coaching more concrete.

Select one selling behaviour that matters in your team.

Write down what observable good practice looks like.

Review one recent opportunity against the agreed behaviour, considering context.

Agree one coaching action and when you will review its application.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most important quality of a sales manager?

The ability to turn commercial expectations into clear standards and help people apply them consistently. Sound judgement, communication and integrity support this work.

How is sales coaching different from performance management?

Coaching helps people develop and apply capabilities. Performance management also includes expectations, evidence, support and formal employer processes where required.

Should sales managers focus on revenue or behaviour?

Both. Revenue and pipeline results matter, while observable behaviours help diagnose what support or change may improve execution.

Can a strong salesperson become a great manager?

Yes, but sales success alone does not establish management capability. Coaching, feedback, fair assessment and team development need to be learned and practised.

Make effective management practice repeatable.

Discuss how to define clear selling standards and develop managers who coach and support their teams.

How to Sell to BIG Companies

by Iain Swanston

Enterprise selling

How to Sell to Big Companies: Navigate the Buying Process

Selling to a large organisation means helping several people reach a defensible buying decision, not simply securing a meeting with a senior contact.

By Iain Swanston, Founder, Klozers · Updated 14 October 2026

Quick answer

To sell to big companies, select accounts with a credible business need, understand who owns the outcome and the budget, establish the customer’s current buying decision, develop a buyer-validated value case and agree evidence-based next commitments. Do not confuse seller activity with buying progress.

Key takeaways

Account fit matters more than company size alone.
Economic Owner, Economic Buyer and Champion are different roles.
Buyer gates are not a universal sequence.
The customer should validate the business case.
Track customer decisions, not just seller actions.

What makes selling to big companies different?

Large organisations rarely make significant purchases through one conversation or one individual. Requirements may be shaped by operational teams, technical specialists, finance, procurement, legal and senior leadership. Each may be solving a different problem.

A large opportunity is therefore not qualified simply because a contact is interested, a meeting has taken place or a proposal has been requested. The seller must understand how the organisation will decide, what each stakeholder needs to establish and whether the proposed change is commercially justified.

This does not mean every large company follows the same process. A repeat purchase from an established supplier can differ substantially from a new, strategically important purchase. The practical task is to discover the actual process rather than assume one.

How do you choose which large companies to target?

Start with an ideal customer profile rather than a list of famous company names. Consider the business problem you can address, the organisation’s operating model, whether there is a plausible route to access and whether the commercial value justifies the effort required.

Research relevant divisions, geographic responsibilities, existing suppliers, public priorities and changes that may create a reason to review the current approach. Distinguish an observable trigger from a guess about the company’s needs.

Prioritise accounts where you can describe a credible problem hypothesis and identify how to test it. A prestigious logo with no relevant need, access route or likely decision is not necessarily a strong prospect.

How do you approach a large company without relying on a generic pitch?

Use research to make an informed opening, but invite the buyer to correct your assumptions. A relevant observation about their business is more useful than a lengthy introduction to your own company.

At the start of a meeting, ask what the buyer needs to accomplish in that conversation. This establishes whether the buyer is exploring the problem, defining requirements, testing risk, examining funding or resolving another issue. Adapt the discussion accordingly.

Bring an intellectual contribution: a useful way to examine a problem, compare options or test an assumption. It should have value even if the customer does not select your organisation. Avoid unsupported promises and generic claims about results.

Who actually influences and approves the purchase?

Separate authority from influence. Someone may strongly influence technical requirements without having the authority to approve spending. Equally, a senior executive may control the budget but depend on other people to validate implementation risk.

The Economic Owner is accountable for the business outcome. The Economic Buyer has authority to commit or release funding. These roles can be held by one person or different people; verify them rather than infer them from job titles.

A Coach can help you understand the account. A Champion actively advocates for your proposal internally, including when you are absent. Neither label should be awarded merely because a contact is friendly. Identify Blockers and understand their concerns rather than treating all objections as resistance.

Map each relevant person by the decision they contribute to, their influence, their authority, their interests and the evidence they need. Update that map as you learn more.

What are buyer gates, and do they happen in a fixed order?

A buyer gate is a decision or uncertainty the customer needs to resolve before making a commitment. Examples include whether the solution fits the problem, how it will work operationally, whether the business case is sufficient and whether risks or approvals have been addressed.

The Panasonic training material describes six buyer gates and explicitly says they do not occur in a fixed order. The useful lesson is not to impose a new sales-stage sequence on the buyer. It is to identify the gate the customer is working through now and help them resolve it.

Ask: What decision is still open? Who owns it? What evidence is required? What would happen after it is resolved? A seller who understands these questions can support the buyer more effectively than one who simply tries to advance the CRM stage.

Original six Buyer Gates illustration from the supplied Panasonic participant workbook. The routes illustrate that buyers can address the same decisions in different orders.

How do you build a business case the customer can defend?

Begin with the customer’s own definition of the problem and its consequences. Discuss the cost, time, operational risk or missed opportunity involved, while making clear which assumptions still require validation.

Present a value hypothesis as something the customer can challenge and correct. For example, ask which costs are material, what baseline data exists and who would validate the estimate. A range based on explicit assumptions can be more useful than a precise figure without evidence.

The aim is a value case owned by the buyer, not a vendor spreadsheet that nobody internally accepts. The business case must also account for implementation, disruption, alternative options and the possibility of doing nothing.

When the buyer confirms the relevant numbers and decision criteria, document that agreement. Never treat a seller-generated estimate as an established customer outcome.

How do you work with procurement, legal and risk teams?

Do not treat procurement and governance as obstacles to be bypassed. Their involvement can be essential to a sound decision, particularly where data, security, regulatory, contractual or operational risks matter.

Ask early whether there is a formal tender, approved supplier process, security assessment, legal review or budget cycle. Establish who owns each requirement and what evidence they need. The timing may differ across departments.

Where requirements are still being defined, contribute useful information transparently and fairly. Do not assume that helping shape requirements guarantees selection or that an existing relationship overrides governance.

How do you recognise genuine progress in a long sales cycle?

Seller activity and buyer progress are different measures. Completing a demonstration or sending a proposal proves that the seller acted. It does not, by itself, prove that the customer moved towards a decision.

Look for customer-confirmed evidence: agreement on the problem, access to the people responsible for a decision, validated evaluation criteria, a buyer-owned business case or a specific internal review with a named owner.

After each meeting, agree what the customer will do next, why it matters, who is responsible and when it is expected. A reciprocal commitment is stronger than an open-ended promise to stay in touch. If the customer cannot identify a next decision, reconsider whether the opportunity is genuinely active.

What mistakes prevent sellers from winning enterprise accounts?

Common mistakes include concentrating on one friendly contact, confusing seniority with buying authority, presenting too early, assuming a universal procurement process and building a business case without buyer validation.

Another mistake is continuing to invest in an opportunity despite no credible access, no agreed business problem and no customer-side commitment. Qualification is an ongoing judgement about whether the deal deserves further investment.

The opposite mistake is overcomplicating a straightforward purchase. Match the depth of account planning to the commercial value, risk and actual buying complexity.

How can sales leaders develop these capabilities?

Enterprise selling requires more than product knowledge. Salespeople need to practise account research, stakeholder conversations, discovery, commercial justification, risk discussions and customer-confirmed progression.

Managers can coach against live opportunities by asking what the customer has decided, which decision remains open, who owns the outcome and funding, and what evidence supports the forecast. Review the quality of the customer-side evidence, not simply the number of activities completed.

For teams selling complex solutions, a structured approach to complex sales and selling to large manufacturers can support more consistent execution.

How can sales simulation software support enterprise deal reviews?

The supplied Klozers sales simulation software illustrates a structured way for salespeople and managers to examine an enterprise opportunity. The Rep Console shows the buying group, including the Economic Buyer and Economic Owner, with access ratings and a coverage assessment. It also identifies qualification and movement as distinct areas to review, rather than relying on a single subjective assessment of deal confidence.

Used in coaching, this type of exercise can prompt more precise questions: Which buying roles are represented? Where is access missing? Is there customer-confirmed evidence of progress? What assumption needs testing next? The software supports discussion and practice; its scores are not proof that an opportunity will close.

Extract from the supplied sales simulation interface. The example deal shows the Economic Buyer and Economic Owner, stakeholder access ratings and an exposed coverage assessment. The illustrative score is not a prediction of sales results.

What should you do on Monday?

Choose one active large-account opportunity. Write down the decision the customer is currently trying to make, the person responsible, the evidence they need and the next customer-owned action. Identify one important assumption you have not verified. Use your next conversation to test it rather than deliver another generic presentation.

Where the account is already a customer, consider how managing key accounts differs from acquiring a new enterprise buyer.

Frequently asked questions

Is selling to big companies the same as enterprise sales?

The terms often overlap. Both can involve complex stakeholder groups, formal governance and longer decision processes, but size alone does not determine buying complexity.

How do I find the decision-maker in a large company?

Identify who owns the business outcome, who can approve funding and who shapes the decision. These may be different people. Validate each role through discovery.

What if my contact cannot introduce me to the Economic Buyer?

Understand why. Ask which internal decision your contact can influence, what evidence they need and whether there is a legitimate route to wider stakeholder involvement. Reassess qualification if access remains limited.

Do all enterprise buyers follow the same buying stages?

No. Buying decisions and approvals differ by organisation, category, risk and circumstances. Buyer gates need not be sequential.

How do I shorten an enterprise sales cycle?

You cannot control the customer’s governance timetable. You can reduce avoidable delay by clarifying decision requirements, participants and evidence early, and agreeing meaningful next actions.

Develop stronger enterprise sales capability

For sales leaders who want their teams to improve qualification, stakeholder engagement and deal progression, Klozers can help assess current practice and identify development priorities.

The Best SaaS Sales Training & Coaching for SDR’s & AE’s

by Iain Swanston

1. SaaS Sales Training: Before you Start

How do you grow SaaS sales? How do you grow sales in your software or technology business?

Sadly most companies are doing the same generic marketing and getting the same generic results.

Growing monthly and annual recurring revenues isn’t easy for any organisation.

Behind every overnight success there is nearly always years of hardwork and maybe even some failures from which they learn and move forward.

B2B sales training can differ depending on the stage of the startup. The strategy and skills required in stage 1 Product/market fit, will vary from stage 3 Scaling.

Many companies make the mistake of jumping to stage 3 immediately and this can kill their growth. If you try and ramp up sales before you have a firm grip on the systems and processes that drive profitability, every customer you add will drive you further away from your profits.

How to Build a SaaS Sales Funnel

Why B2B Marketing is Broken & How to Fix it

How to Scale a Business Super FAST

HOW TO TAKE THE GUESS WORK OUT OF GROWING YOUR ARR

Before starting any SaaS or software sales training here are a few boxes we suggest you tick so that you get the most from your investment in sales training. Sales Training can differ hugely depending on the stage of the startup.

The sales strategy and skills required in stage 1 Product/market fit will vary from stage 3 Scaling. Many companies make the mistake of jumping to stage 3 immediately and this can kill their growth.

Stage 1 – Ensure you have a proven product/market fit.

Many start-ups rush to employ sales reps and try to scale up before they have proven their product/markit fit.

Product/market fit is simply the process have taking your value proposition and proving you can sell it to someone. As you would expec,t one sale doesn’t mean you have a viable business model,but it’s a starting point.

Many B2B start ups aren’t sure how to prove their product market fit so here are some questions you should ask your team:

1a. Do we have repeat business? Although they have value one off sales don’t actually prove much becasue they won’t help you grow recurring revenues. Locking clients into an annual contract of 12 monthly payments doesn’t equal 12 sets of repeat business.

It’s not until the annual contract renews that you can get a feel for how valuable they see your product.

1b. Are your customers in the same verticals? It’s usually a good sign if you are having repeat success within the same vertical.

That’s not to say that selling across different industries is a bad thing far from it, but in the early days it’s easier when you can be hyperfocussed and branch out as part of your growth strategy.

1c. Is you product solving the same problem? Again it’s not a bad thing if your product solves multiple problems, it’s just in the early stages this can lead to generic marketing and confused sales messaging.

1d. Are you receiving a regular flow of referrals? Most people will happily recommend a product or service if they feel it will of benefit. Whilst a lack of referrals may simply be because you haven’t asked – in this case what is your Net Promoter Score? Improving both of these before you start to scale your business will only make selling easier.

Product/market fit is a journey, not one single event and takes time, customer feedback and usually many iterations from the initial concept. Each iteration should be defined, measured and tested by the user base before being accepted.

1e. Lastly, you should never under estimated the feedback loop from your early adopters. This isn’t just about changing your MVP, it’s about listening and understanding the problems from the prospects perspective.

Seemingly small changes in the sales messaging and sales process based on feedback can have a huge impact in the results you will achieve.

The same feedback loop is invaluable for tech based businesses as they can use this to develop the product roadmap post MVP.

Stage 2 – Systemise Sales

Once Product/market fit is achieved the next stage for Startups is to systemise sales. This can vary greatly, however, the general rules of thumb are, higher prices will mean more man hours are required to sell, and the larger the target customer the less automated the sales process.

Lower priced solutions targeting SME’s is more likely to be a marketing led sale and higher priced solutions to Enterprise organisations are predominantly sales led.

Systemising your B2B sales includes six main areas as follows:

creating a measurable and repeatable sales process
using automation technology where appropriate
segmenting markets and accounts
turning proven sales plays into repeatable sales process
Volume on-boarding process for new hires
gathering relevant KPI’s and metrics – closing ratios, pipeline coverage, average deal size, cost of customer acquisition, customer lifetime value and Sales Rep scorecards

Without these metrics you should not move to the next stage. The metrics should form a solid business case to investors and if they don’t you simply need to make some changes before moving forward.

Having one loss making sales rep and then adding 10 more as you scale, all the time hoping you will turn the corner of profitability isn’t recommended. Sales performance is therefore an important part of stage 2, both in terms of how you will measure it and how you will manage it.

Stage 3 – Scaling Sales

The last and final stage is scaling sales. In many cases start-ups rush to this stage due to pressure from investors or they are running out of cash. The reality is that the more time and effort you put into stages 1 and 2, makes stage 3 so much easier.

When you are ready we recommend you read “How to Build a SaaS Sales Funnel”.

Stage 3 creates huge changes in the business as you move from a small, mostly development based team, to hiring multiple sales, marketing, operations and HR staff.

Costs are huge however it shouldn’t be a concern because you have a proven product/market fit (stage 1) and the right systems & processes in place that are following proven KPI’s (stage 2).

Another challenge here is the mindset of the leadership team. In most cases they have gone for years focussing on saving money, and now they need to start spending money on more sales and marketing hires.

Often this rapid growth can decrease profitability even further as new customers are onboarded.

Moving from a mindset of survival to one of growth shouldn’t be underestimated.

2. Going Outbound

Starting any Outbound sales campaign is a dangerous thing, because when Outbound is done badly it leaves a scorched earth behind.

A scorched earth approach will not only limit future growth, it will dramatically increase the churn in your sales team.

Sales Reps like winning and when they aren’t winning and earning commission, they will quickly look elsewhere.

This will add cost to your recruitment, management and training budgets, in addition to the missed market opportunities.

Going Outbound is difficult and most businesses make the mistake of simply sending a generic email (including a first name and the company name is no longer classed as personalising) and following up with a nuisance cold call.

This approach will get you some sales, but you will be leaving thousands on the table. The best outbound strategies are one to few, not one to many and they are highly coordinated campaigns that deliver higher opportunity creation rates.

This involves sales and marketing working together to come up with the right target audience, the right sales messaging, the right initial approach and the right sales plays. All of which needs to be supported by content, collateral and campaign material.

There are two primary drivers for B2B success as follows that you should be aware of:

1. The initial approach from the sales development reps need to provide a “gift”. No one likes receiving cold calls and most sales people don’t like making them. What gift can you provide that delivers value to the user that will encourage the salespeople to pick up the phone?

What is of high value to the user, but low value/cost for you to deliver?

2. The faster the user receives value from the product/service, then the more likely they are to use the service, stay engaged and complete the on boarding process.

Instant gratification motivates users so use this to your advantage. Invest heavily in your on boarding and customer success programmes, because this will reduce your churn down the line.

3. Understanding Sales Training: The Basics

To train your B2B sales team to be the best that they can and bring in the most sales that they can, you have to use the science of learning. Just like students in a classroom, your sales team is going to study and work hard to try to bring about the best results.

For any student, whether they’re in a traditional classroom or not, there is a general 70:20:10 rule of learning. This is a widely-adopted rule that applies to nearly all scenarios of teaching and learning.

To train your sales team to their maximum level of efficiency, follow this:

70% on-the-job training

20% coaching based on performance

10% in-classroom learning

If you follow this basic guideline, you’ll see that your team will respond better to training and be able to do more with what they’ve learned from their time in training.

Another rule that you should pay attention to in regards to training your team is the idea of repetition. You can’t expect that every member of your team remember every rule, procedure, and policy that you’ve told them for the rest of their lives.

In fact, most people can only retain about 20% of what they’ve learned over a month. To reduce the amount of information forgotten (and ensure that your team is up to speed), you have to train everyone on your team continually.

In terms of sales training content, whilst every business is different we would advise you include topics like how to engage buyers, selling skills, building a sales pipeline, consultative selling skills, reducing sales cycles and account growth.

This means that you need to train even the most senior employees of your team continuously.

TREATING YOUR SALES TEAM AS STUDENTS

Whether you’re training a new group of salespeople, or repeating an old lesson to a group of executives, you should keep a classroom-like state in mind. All of your sales representatives are students when they’re in training. Therefore, you have to act like a teacher to perform effective sales coaching.

Think about some of the best strategies that teachers in traditional classrooms use. For example: “See. Do. Teach.” This is a phrase that’s widely adopted by teachers who are looking to make effective students.

What this means is that if you want your salespeople to be as effective as possible, you have to show them what to do, ask them to do it, and then require that they teach someone else how to do it. Not only is this repetitive. It also requires your team to show their skills in three different ways.

After a student (or salesperson) achieves this line of practice, they are said to have mastered the material. However, we all know that one listen-in and two practice calls aren’t enough to make effective salespeople.

REACTING TO PROGRESS MADE AS A COACH

When you’re teaching a new or old group of salespeople, you should see the act more as a way of coaching them, rather than training them. We’re sure you know, your role as a coach for the sales team is to give individuals feedback based on what they do.

Rather than dictating how they should conduct sales calls, you should give the salesperson feedback based on what they could improve on. Don’t forget to highlight things they’ve done correctly as this will enforce them to do those things correctly again.

As you’re acting as a coach, it’s also essential to focus on one performance indicator at a time. Think about the one quality that you think would send this salesperson above and beyond as they’re conducting sales calls and conferences.

Don’t overwhelm your sales team by picking too many areas of focus at once. Let them ease their way into making sales by fixing one attribute at a time. You’ll also find that coaching and teaching them this way is more manageable as their focus remains on one thing rather than several things.

SALES MANAGERS

Often the most neglected but important role in sales is that of sales managers and sales leaders. These are the people who set the bar for sales performance and what is acceptable or not. In many cases sales managers were either the top sales rep or simply a manager with little or no sales experience.

Whether you buy in experienced sales managers or develop your own sales leaders this investment in talent will repay itself many times over.

SALES PERFORMANCE

It’s worthwhile noting that Sales Coaching and Sales Management are very different skills but both play an important part in building and increasing sales performance. Where possible you should separate the roles as a coach cannot make a coachee do anything where as Sales Managers can.

SELLING RESOURCES

Your SaaS team will inevitably need resources to help them make sales. These resources will range from research tools, to prospecting tools, through to klozing tools like online presentation and digital sign off tools.

Other than mentioning Microsoft which everybody has anyway, we deliberately don’t provide a list of resources in order that this blog can remain vendor neutral, however, we’re more than happy to talk through the resources that we have found to work best.

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING

When you’re training salespeople most companies default to the traditional model whereby they hire a trainer for a day or two days in house training. This may work for some but from experience we have found that at least one member of your team will leave. It then becomes financially impossible to have a trainer return to train the one new hire.

We recommend documenting all the training in an electronic B2B Sales Playbook which is living, working document that can be updated and refined as your team matures.

Our Playbooks provide a single point of reference and storage for everything a sales person would need in order to be successful selling tech based solutions.

The Playbooks are built in Microsoft OneNote and work across both Windows and Mac devices.

WORKING TOWARDS LONG-TERM SUCCESS

Don’t assume that your sales force can be taught in just a week or even a couple of weeks. The coaching process should be viewed as a multi-year process that is made to bring salespeople from amateurs to coaches themselves.

As you’re conducting your sales coaching program, you should never assume that someone doesn’t need training. No matter how much previous training and experience they have, you should be prepared to put them through a sales program. Even with these ‘experts,’ you should work to build their strengths.

While your sales representatives are succeeding and learning more about their role in the sales process, you should note how they could fill higher positions in the future. For example, you may have a sales representative who is showing great promise for a leadership role. Take note of this and encourage the representative to work towards a higher position like this.

Working towards long-term success means that you should consistently be working to better your sales representatives so that they can bring more business to your company.

ONLINE SALES COACHING

Traditional tech based sales training focuses on what we call the tactical part of sales training. Whilst this is hugely important, there is an inevitable ceiling that is created once you have optimised this part of your sales.

Klozers will work with your management team and ensure we deliver a holistic solution that maximises the market opportunity.

If you’re looking for a program to complement your on-the-job sales training, look no further than our online sales coaching. Our sales experts will coach your sales team to be the best they can be by highlighting strengths and building upon any perceived weak points.

We know that you’re looking for a strong sales force. The only way to get this is to invest in quality tech focused sales coaching like ours.

Klozers provides training for SaaS companies via our offices in United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia and the USA.

Back to Table of Contents

Tailoring Our SaaS Training to Meet Your Teams Needs

Every sales team is unique, with its own strengths, weaknesses, and goals. To achieve improved sales results it’s essential to tailor the sales training to meet their specific needs. This approach not only improves sales results but also aligns with the individual skills and career paths of your team members, from new salespeople to seasoned directors.

Understanding Your Team’s Composition and Goals

Before you begin any training session, it’s crucial to review your team’s current performance, sales processes and sales skills to identify areas where they need the most help. Are your sales reps struggling with closing deals or qualifying leads? Do they need better tools to convince prospects or to articulate the value proposition of your product? Understanding these challenges will help you design a curriculum that addresses these pain points directly, ensuring the training is applicable and relevant.

Creating a Customized Training Program

A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t always work in sales program. Your team might benefit from a combination of consultative selling techniques, practical exercises, and real-life scenarios that mirror their day-to-day challenges. Incorporating blended learning, including both virtual and live training sessions, allows you to cater to different learning styles and ensures that every team member, regardless of their role, can engage fully with the material.

For instance, new salespeople might need more focus on the basics of SaaS sales, such as understanding the sales funnel and mastering CRM usage. In contrast, experienced sales reps may benefit more from advanced tactics, like improving their ability to handle objections or refining their approach to securing renewals.

Continuous Improvement and Support

Sales training is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. After the initial training is completed, it’s essential to continue supporting your team with regular coaching sessions, review meetings, and feedback loops. This continuous education ensures that your team members are not just trained but are also evolving with the ever-changing demands of the SaaS industry.

By focusing on the specific needs of your team, you can build a strong foundation for long-term sales success. Remember, the goal is to enable your team to not only meet but exceed expectations, creating a sales culture where every team member feels confident and capable of driving the company’s success.

Realizing the Benefits of a Tailored Approach

When your sales program is customized to your team’s needs, the results speak for themselves. Your team will not only be better equipped to handle sales calls and demos but also more capable of developing lasting relationships with customers and decision-makers. This approach fosters a personal brand for each salesperson, making them more effective in the eyes of prospects and clients alike.

Finally, a tailored training program helps your organization stay ahead of the competition by continually refining and adapting your sales strategy to meet the evolving needs of the market. This commitment to excellence is what separates the good from the great in SaaS sales, ensuring your team not only reaches but surpasses its sales goals.

By focusing on the specific needs of your team, you can transform your sales training from a generic program into a powerful tool that drives measurable results and sets your organization on the path to long-term success.

Bespoke Sales Training

Sales Simulation

Not sure which fits?

Advanced Sales Training: Why Experienced Sales Teams Need More Than Advanced Techniques

What is advanced sales training?

Start with the fundamentals

Three gaps that can look like a training problem

Knowledge gap

Application gap

Execution standard

Where advanced B2B selling becomes difficult

Why simulation matters for experienced sellers

Build on what your best people already do

What managers must reinforce after the session

How to design an advanced sales training programme

When is bespoke advanced sales training appropriate?

Develop the capability your team needs

How to build an outbound sales team: hire, equip and measure it

Key takeaways

How to build an outbound sales team: what comes first?

Who should you hire for an outbound sales team?

Should you build the team in-house or outsource it?

What does an outbound salesperson do?

Where does an outbound team's playbook come from?

How should you measure an outbound sales team?

Common questions about building an outbound sales team

Consultative Sales Training – Top question from Google

What is a Consultative Sales Approach?

Steps involved in Consultative Selling

1. Research potential buyers thoroughly before contacting them

2. Define the Symptoms – What are the symptoms of the problem the potential customer is facing?

3. Root cause analysis – ask the buyer questions to understand and diagnose the underlying causes.

4. Business impact – Ask how the issue is impacting on the business. Does it impact on morale, performance, profitability or all three?

5. Financial Impact – Find out how much the problem will cost the business if they do not fix it.

6. Personal Impact – Find out how the problem affects the buyer personally – how does it affect their day to day job?

What do you need to be a good consultative salesperson?

What questions to ask?

Which Products and Services are best suited to Consultative Sales Techniques?

What is Consultative Sales Training?

Klozers Sales Training

Phone Sales Training: Practical Skills for Inbound and Outbound Calls

What is the difference between inbound and outbound phone sales?

Inbound starts with a conversation the buyer has chosen to have. Outbound first has to earn the conversation.

How should you handle an inbound sales enquiry by phone?

How should you make an outbound sales call?

What phone sales skills do salespeople need?

Should salespeople use telephone sales scripts?

How should you prepare for a sales call?

What questions should you ask on a sales call?

How should you handle objections on the phone?

How should you finish a sales call?

How should managers coach phone sales calls?

Phone sales training FAQs

Sales prospecting training course for B2B teams, built on your own accounts

Key takeaways

What should a sales prospecting training course cover?

How do you build a list of companies like your best customers?

How do triggers and buying cycles tell you when to call?

Who should your salespeople call first?

What should a salesperson say on the first call?

Which channels should the training cover?

What results should you expect from the training?

How do you practise first contact without risking your best accounts?

Common questions about sales training for finding new customers

Virtual sales training

Key takeaways

When is virtual sales training the right choice?

Does virtual sales training work?

Why split a one-day workshop into weekly sessions?

What is Zoom fatigue, and how do you design around it?

Common questions about virtual sales training

Why invest in Sales Training and Consulting?

1. Why sales consulting compliments your sales training?

2. Why is Sales Training so effective?

3. What happens before training takes place?

4. What is the aim of Sales Training

5. How can a Sales Consultant help our business?

6. Adding Sales Experience to your Leadership Team

7. Which Companies benefit the most from Consulting Services

8. Build a Selling System