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Gestion des ventes

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Cold Calling Training | Skills + Practice = Success

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Cold Calling Training Courses

In this article we will cover...

Cold Calling Training – Top question from Google

How do you Train for cold calling?

HERE’S THE SHORT ANSWER:

  1. Thoroughly research your target audience and what’s important to them
  2. Ensure you know exactly how your product or service impacts your customer and the value it delivers
  3. Plan your day and make sure you have prepared your call lists in advance
  4. Use a CRM or other tool to track every call you make
  5. Use email and social media in combination to increase your success
  6. Slow down – build rapport first and add value before you ask for anything
  7. Embrace the NO’s, don’t take it personally and understand, success is following your process consistently
  8. If you are not getting more No’s than Yeses then you are not talking to enough people
  9. Test everything and keep testing everything, so you can learn and improve

Some sales people dread the thought of cold calling, and many customers hate receiving endless cold calls from various companies trying to sell them products or services that they don’t want.

In this changing world, many of us don’t even make a phone call in our personal lives, as we swap traditional phone calls for instant messaging and social media.

However, cold calling is a tried and tested sales channel which has been used for decades to secure new customers, and can still play an important part in your outbound sales strategy.  

Whilst cold calling might not seem to be the in thing, most companies still have some form of cold calling operations. In fact, cold calling is considered to be the most used sales technique in the world.

1. Cold calling is dead, long live cold calling

The way in which modern buyers operate has changed. Many buyers are more savvy now, and don’t like to be sold to, but they do like to buy.

With this in mind, you might think that cold calling has had its day, and should be consigned to the bin. Whilst the world has moved on, cold calling can still be a really effective sales tool.

Salespeople do however need to adapt their practices to suit the modern buyer. Gone are the days of aimlessly working through a spreadsheet, today’s cold callers need to work in a much more targeted and smarter way.

If you’re considering using cold calling as a route to market it’s important your sales reps are properly trained and not simply “winging” it on every call. Our telephone cold calling course will help your sales reps develop a positive attitude, refine your cold calling process, improve their objection handling skills and sales techniques.

2. What is the definition of a cold call?

A cold call is simply when you telephone a stranger who is not expecting your call. At some stage it is highly likely that we have either cold called someone, or been cold called ourselves, either in a work capacity or in our personal lives.

If you have met the potential customer previously at a trade show or had some previous communication with them, then that is not a cold call.

Similarly, if you have corresponded with the prospective buyer before, maybe sent them some promotional material either via email or LinkedIn, this is not a cold call.

The latter examples are called “Warm Calling”, which typically has a much higher success rate, but as you would expect, lead in times and costs are more expensive for warm calling.

बिक्री प्रशिक्षण क्यों महत्वपूर्ण है
Cold Calling Training Course

3. Cold Calling Training

Many sales people do not get sufficient cold calling training, either in terms of quantity or quality. This may be because companies they are reluctant to invest in their teams and assume that in cold calling the volume of calls is king.

However, this approach is counterproductive to creating and maintaning a good brand, securing new customers and increasing profits and revenue for your company.

One bad cold call could have ramifications for your business, as it could give a negative impression of your business and destroy your brand reputation.

Not only can this mean that the person being cold called will be very unlikely to order from your company, but they may tell their colleagues and business network of their poor experience, starting a chain of dissatisfaction. If this happens time and time again, it could become a major problem for your business.

Cold calling is a difficult job, there is no getting away from that. As you are jumping into the unknown you have no idea as to who is on the other side, they could be aggressive towards you, or just look to play with you and waste your time.

However, all of that anguish can be overcome by the feeling of success in pulling off a sale or booking a meeting, where originally there may have been little chance of success.

Like most things in life, you get out of cold calling what you put in. If you are willing to learn, and put in the hard graft of calling a seemingly endless array of people, you will get some success.

Making cold calls and repeating the cold calling process will help cement those practices into your sales pitch, but it may take thousands of calls for you to perfect it.

Unfortunately, somewhere along those thousands of calls, you are likely to encounter a troublesome customer and a lot of rejection. It is important that you don’t let this put you off.

Klozers offer specialist cold calling training courses, which can be a useful investment if your cold calling isn’t getting the right results, or you want to try to source new customers via cold calling techniques.

There are also a whole host of videos and books on sales training (and specifically telephone sales), which can give great tips and insights. However, for many, this is only a substitute for good sales training and experience. 

Our cold calling training is popular with both new sales reps, and existing people who want to improve their cold calling techniques.

4. Marketing vs Telesales

Unsurprisingly, almost all marketing executives will tell you that telephone prospecting is a waste of time, and companies should focus their attention on marketing – resulting in greater budgets for their teams.

Marketing is hugely important, however, it is reactive and not pro-active, and that might not work for you. 

As an example, if you have a proven niche software solution and are selling into a vertical such as Hotel Chains within the Hospitality sector, would you wait on all the Hotels seeing your marketing material and then contacting you, or simply get your business development team to contact them directly?

Yes, in an ideal world they will be familiar with your brand before the sales reps contact them, but the point is you would never advocate sitting around waiting on them to contact you.

Effective modern businesses should look to combine both of these techniques. Cold calling has its place, but marketing should always be viewed as the main lead generator for the business.

Cold Calling Training Course

4. What makes a good Telesales Team?

* Preparation

When we think of cold calling, we might think of sales reps being in an endless rush, jumping from potential customer to potential customer without a thought. However, proper preparation is an important part of successful cold calling. In some instances, scripts can be a useful tool. If scripts are used then the sales rep should prepare and learn the script, so they can sound engaging on the phone, rather than robotic.

* Record Keeping

Keeping track of your progress as a cold caller is an important part of the cold calling process. It can be demoralising making call after call and getting making no progress, but if the company or sales person keeps an efficient log of call rates then this can motivate the sales reps. For example, if a cold calling sales team know they have a success rate of 1 in 50, and the sales person has made 15 calls without any success, they know that this can be a common occurrence and if they use their skills correctly a sale may be round the corner.

* Plan for the day ahead

Modern business is full of statistics, and every last detail can be logged somewhere. This can be useful in looking at the success rates of cold calling. Are there particular times of the day, days of the week, or parts of the month when telephone prospecting is more successful than others.

If clear patterns emerge then sales teams should double up their efforts to take advantage of the successful patterns. When cold calling is less successful then this time could be better spent on team training or meetings. It would be poor team planning if a weekly meeting was scheduled on the most successful time of the week!

If it takes you a couple of calls in the morning to full get into the swing of things, then you can always keep your best prospects back a couple of hours, or even keep them until the time/day when you know cold calls are more successful. You will however, need to work around the availability of the buyer.

* Follow Up

Following up with a cold call contact is vitally important. During the phone call you might think that the person isn’t interested, but even a short follow up email could bring them onto your side. The buyer may not have heard about your company before, and be sceptical of your business claims.

If they are provided with some material material and links to your website, they can corroborate your information themselves, which is a powerful tool. Emails which are sent after a cold call have a surprisingly high open rate.

* Practice makes permanent

If you want to be good at something you need to practice, practice and practice some more. It is thought that to become a cold calling expert you need to dedicate 10,000 hours to doing it.

You will need to guard against practice making bad habits permanent. It can be easy to rid ourselves or our sales teams of bad traits if they don’t do it too often or they have just started, but once they are embedded it can be much harder to get rid off.

Therefore, it is important that salespeople receive training prior to starting cold calling, and that regular sales training and review procedures are in place to avoid problems becoming permanent.

* Share ideas and experience across the team

Sales people are naturally competitive people, they will want to beat their colleagues in the number of sales or appointments secured. However, there is a lot to be said for teamwork. Debriefing at the end of the day can be used to refine sales pitches to what works and what doesn’t work. Sharing experiences both good cold calls and bad can also be reassuring to colleagues.

Cold calls don’t always go to plan, and it can be a good idea to expect the unexpected, and prepare as an individual or as a team for what response you should give in unexpected circumstances.

5. What makes cold calling so difficult?

As we said earlier cold calling is difficult, but don’t let that put you off making it an important part of your sales strategy. Modern buyers have become more adapt to fending of pushy salespeople, especially if it is via a cold call.

Cold calling has a low conversion rate, meaning that cold callers will need to make a significant number of calls to secure an appointment or order. It is thought the average conversion rate of securing an appointment via cold calls is between 1 – 3%.

Inevitably not everyone who agrees to an appointment will place an order, so its success can be low.

Securing a telephone number of a prospective client can be a difficult task in itself. Many major businesses do not advertise the relevant information, leaving salespeople to bounce between departments trying to find the right person.

6. Cold Calling Training Courses

Klozers offer specialist cold calling courses for any industry, which can help your sales team improve their cold calling skills and success rate. Courses are suitable for new salespeople and experienced salespeople who might need a refresher.

Sales Courses can be tailored to the needs of the attendees, so if there is an issues which is specific to a particular industry, it can be addressed in the training. Whilst not technically cold calling, our courses can also include how to convert incoming sales calls.

Cold calling training can include high paced boot camps which cram a lot of learning into one day. The fast-paced environment of a boot camp training session is well matched with the fast pace of cold calling.

As people learn through experience, many training sessions include live demonstrations of cold calling skills, and role play to improve learning outcomes.

Some companies limit the amount of participants from any one company attending a training session together. This ensures that the sessions aren’t dominated by the concerns of requirements of one single company. It also allows the sharing of ideas from different companies to benefit everyone.

Like many businesses cold calling providers have adapted their practices in response to the changing world of COVID-19. Online cold calling courses are now far more common than they would have been a few years ago. This can reduce the time and expense of travel.

Bespoke training packages are available, which includes ongoing 1-2-1 sales coaching, which can be useful to continuously motivate your sales team, keep their performance fresh and vibrant and ensure that bad habits don’t creep in.

7 raisons pour lesquelles vous devriez envisager une formation à la vente en ligne

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formation à la vente en ligne

Formation à la vente sur le Web - Top question de Google

La formation à la vente en ligne est-elle efficace ?

La formation à la vente en ligne est efficace car elle aide les organisations

  • Réduire le temps de déplacement vers les événements en direct
  • offrir un meilleur équilibre entre vie professionnelle et vie privée en réduisant le temps que les vendeurs passent hors de chez eux
  • Réduction des coûts de formation à la vente
  • Une communication et une collaboration plus rapides
  • Renforcement des nouvelles stratégies et tactiques de vente après la formation initiale
  • Une meilleure responsabilisation pour aider les vendeurs à adopter de nouveaux comportements
  • Soutien continu aux vendeurs existants et nouveaux


La formation à la vente en ligne s’est considérablement améliorée et doit être considérée comme faisant partie de votre formation générale à la vente.

La formation à la vente sur le web ou la formation à la vente en ligne est devenue un aspect essentiel de la formation à la vente, depuis l’avènement de la fermeture et la tendance subséquente au travail à domicile.

L’art de la virtualité est devenu un avantage pour tous les secteurs d’activité permettant de travailler ou d’étudier tout en restant chez soi.

Malgré cela, de nombreuses entreprises ont du mal à fournir une analyse de rentabilité complète pour la formation en ligne par rapport à l’approche plus traditionnelle en face à face.

Si la formation en face à face a toujours un rôle important à jouer dans la formation à la vente, voici quelques domaines que vous pouvez prendre en compte lorsque vous évaluez les différentes options disponibles.

#Formation à la vente sur Internet

1. Réduction du temps de trajet

Traditionnellement, la formation en face à face est dispensée dans le cadre d’événements d’un ou deux jours. Dans la plupart des cas, elles ont eu lieu dans des hôtels et des centres de conférence. Comme de plus en plus d’entreprises emploient des équipes de vente géographiquement éloignées, certains participants peuvent passer une journée à voyager pour assister à l’événement et une journée à voyager pour rentrer chez eux. C’est trois jours pour une journée d’apprentissage.

Avec la formation en ligne, vous ne devez pas parcourir des centaines de kilomètres pour venir travailler. Vous n’aurez pas besoin de vous lever tôt pour éviter les embouteillages et vous n’aurez pas besoin d’un budget énorme pour commencer.

formation à la vente en ligne

2. Équilibre entre vie professionnelle et vie privée

Pour de nombreuses personnes, trouver du temps pour la famille est devenu une partie importante de leur travail. Le travail hybride a permis à de nombreuses personnes de supprimer les longs trajets domicile-travail, ce qui leur permet de passer davantage de temps de qualité avec leurs proches.

La formation à la vente en ligne fait partie de cette solution, en fournissant une formation à son propre rythme et/ou des cours structurés en ligne, que les équipes de vente peuvent suivre depuis leur domicile.

3. Frais de livraison

Traditionnellement, la formation en personne d’une équipe de vente est dispensée dans des salles de classe et des salles de réunion d’hôtel. Ajoutez à cela le coût de l’hébergement lors d’événements de formation en personne, et les coûts peuvent rapidement commencer à grimper, même pour une petite équipe.

De nombreux fournisseurs de formation répercuteront la réduction des coûts de prestation sur les clients, car ils économiseront eux-mêmes sur les frais de déplacement et d’hébergement de leurs formateurs commerciaux.

Formation avancée en vente
Cours de formation à la vente en ligne

4. Collaboration et communication plus rapides

La plupart des formations traditionnelles sont qualifiées de “formation à l’impact”. Il s’agit d’événements ponctuels destinés à donner un coup de fouet à l’apprentissage et au développement.

Bien que ce type de formation ait encore sa place, de nombreuses entreprises ont constaté que les vendeurs ont besoin d’aide quand ils en ont besoin. Ils ne veulent pas garder leur question pour la prochaine formation à la vente dans trois mois. La formation à la vente en ligne permet d’apprendre sur le tas, au moment où les vendeurs en ont le plus besoin.

La formation en ligne Klozers fournit une assistance en temps réel à nos clients par le biais du chat en direct et du courrier électronique. Notre équipe web fournit une assistance à nos clients “au moment même” afin qu’ils puissent apprendre pendant qu’ils travaillent.

5. Renforcement de la formation

De nombreuses études ont montré que les participants peuvent oublier jusqu’à 95 % du contenu de formations d’un ou deux jours sans aucune forme de renforcement.

Quelle que soit la qualité du formateur en vente ou du contenu du cours, les vendeurs ne peuvent tout simplement pas absorber toutes les informations qu’ils reçoivent dans des cours de vente d’un ou deux jours. La formation à la vente est directement liée à la croissance du développement personnel et cela ne se fait pas du jour au lendemain.

Les changements apportés à la stratégie de vente, aux techniques de vente, au processus de vente et aux compétences de vente contribuent tous au succès des ventes, mais doivent être abordés dans une perspective à long terme. Il n’y a pas de baguette magique dans la vente et le succès des ventes passe par le travail et le développement de votre force de vente en termes de performance globale.

La formation à la vente en ligne s’étale généralement sur de plus longues périodes et fonctionne par un effet de goutte à goutte où le contenu est délivré dans un format “peu et souvent” qui est plus facile à absorber.

Pourquoi la formation à la vente est importante
Cours de formation à la vente en ligne

6. Responsabilité des ventes

L’une des parties les plus importantes des meilleurs cours de formation à la vente est la mise en œuvre et le soutien après la formation. Non seulement vos représentants commerciaux auront besoin de soutien, mais votre direction des ventes aura également besoin d’aide pour mettre en œuvre des changements dans le processus de vente, les compétences de vente et les comportements de l’équipe de vente.

Malheureusement, de nombreux professionnels de la vente suivent une formation, puis retournent à leur poste et continuent à faire ce qu’ils ont toujours fait. Ce n’est pas une recette pour le succès.

Le changement est difficile pour tout être humain et la plupart d’entre nous ont besoin de soutien pour y parvenir. Grâce à la formation en ligne, Klozers fournit un soutien continu aux participants et à leurs directeurs des ventes afin de s’assurer que tout changement dans le processus de vente, les nouvelles compétences et les nouveaux comportements de vente sont pleinement adoptés.

7. Soutien continu

De nombreuses entreprises continuent à embaucher du personnel après une formation. Il peut s’agir simplement de remplacer des vendeurs qui sont partis ou de réaliser des projets d’expansion.

Il n’est souvent pas viable financièrement de faire appel à un formateur en vente à chaque fois qu’il y a des changements dans votre équipe de vente et la possibilité de dispenser une formation en ligne aux nouveaux employés est donc extrêmement importante.

La plupart des formations en ligne sont autodidactes et peuvent être enregistrées. Ces informations peuvent ensuite être utilisées pour constituer une bibliothèque à laquelle les professionnels de la vente, actuels et nouveaux, peuvent accéder en permanence.

Formation à la vente en ligne
Cours de formation à la vente en ligne

La formation traditionnelle en personne aura toujours sa place dans l’enseignement moderne de la vente, mais il est important de considérer les alternatives. Bien que les budgets et les circonstances individuelles doivent toujours être pris en compte, la formation en ligne est là pour rester et constitue une partie importante de tout programme de formation continue en vente.

Klozers propose une gamme complète de cours de formation à la vente, tant en face à face que sur Internet. Chacun d’entre eux propose une formation en direct où les participants peuvent interagir.

En plus de notre formation, nous fournissons un soutien continu par le biais du coaching de vente. Si votre force de vente a besoin d’aide pour développer votre proposition de valeur, la prospection commerciale, la réduction du cycle de vente, les compétences de vente, la fidélisation des clients ou les présentations de vente, nous aimerions en parler avec vous.

Notre objectif est de vous aider à atteindre vos objectifs commerciaux, à réaliser vos objectifs de vente et à obtenir le succès commercial que vous recherchez.

Modèle d’évaluation des performances de vente

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Modèle de couverture pour l'évaluation des performances de vente

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

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

Modèle d'évaluation des performances de vente - Top question from Google

Comment rédiger une évaluation des performances de vente ?

Pour rédiger une évaluation juste et équilibrée des performances de vente, vous devez :

  • Organiser des évaluations de performance sur une base mensuelle
  • Utilisez un modèle d’évaluation des performances de vente pour garantir la cohérence, enregistrer les actions et assurer la responsabilité.
  • Dans la mesure du possible, fondez l’examen sur des données et non sur des opinions.
  • Lier les performances de vente au coaching, au salaire et à la progression de carrière
  • Relier les performances de vente pour encourager le développement de nouvelles compétences de vente

Remplissez le formulaire à droite et téléchargez notre modèle d’évaluation des performances de vente.

Vous pouvez l’adapter à votre situation unique et commencer à améliorer les performances de vente dans l’heure qui suit.

Pourquoi les évaluations des performances de vente sont importantes

De nombreuses entreprises et directeurs des ventes négligent l’importance d’un examen régulier et structuré des performances de vente avec leurs représentants. Parfois, ils savent à quel point ces réunions sont importantes, mais elles sont oubliées dans l’agenda en raison d’autres pressions au sein de l’entreprise.

Le plus souvent, les employés sont réduits à un examen annuel des performances, qui ne permet guère d’évaluer les performances, et encore moins de stimuler la croissance professionnelle.

Il existe une myriade de raisons pour lesquelles vous devriez consacrer du temps à ces réunions, mais probablement aucune n’est plus importante que la rétention des employés. Le coût de la recherche et de l’embauche de bons vendeurs augmente. Il est donc logique de faire tout ce qui est en notre pouvoir pour retenir nos employés après cet investissement.

La pandémie, les lockdowns et le travail à domicile ont tous contribué à ce que les vendeurs repensent leur mode de vie et leurs objectifs de vie. Les statistiques montrent qu’en 2021, 48 millions de personnes quitteront leur emploi, 41 % de la main-d’œuvre mondiale envisagent de quitter leur emploi et 46 % envisagent de déménager au cours des 12 prochains mois.

Les entreprises et les directeurs commerciaux qui tardent à réaligner leurs processus de gestion et de travail auront certainement du mal à garder leurs meilleurs vendeurs.

Améliorer les performances de vente

Les évaluations de performances et les 121 sont un élément crucial non seulement de la progression d’un employé, mais aussi de son bien-être. La vente professionnelle peut être stressante et le bien-être mental est extrêmement important.

Ils constituent un excellent moyen de s’assurer que les objectifs de l’entreprise et ceux de l’individu sont atteints et que le parcours professionnel de l’employé est reconnu.

Si un professionnel de la vente rencontre des difficultés dans sa vie professionnelle ou personnelle, l’évaluation des performances est l’occasion d’en discuter avec son directeur des ventes.

L’évaluation des performances doit être un lieu sûr où le représentant commercial peut discuter de ses besoins, de ce qu’il sait faire et de ce qu’il doit améliorer. Loin d’être une réunion angoissante et effrayante avec le patron, ils devraient être un endroit où ils ont quelqu’un à qui ils peuvent parler en toute confiance.

En tant que manager, vous voulez savoir que vos employés sont des personnes en qui vous pouvez avoir confiance. En retour, ils doivent ressentir la même chose de votre part et les 121 sont un excellent moyen d’y parvenir.

La fixation d’objectifs de vente, la discussion sur ce qu’ils attendent vraiment de leur travail et sur la direction qu’ils veulent prendre sont des éléments essentiels de leur fonction. Si l’employé se sent reconnu et entendu, il sera alors plus enclin à s’épanouir dans son poste et à travailler au mieux de ses capacités.

Les directeurs des ventes devraient procéder à des évaluations des performances au moins tous les trimestres, mais idéalement tous les mois, afin que vous, en tant que directeur des ventes, puissiez gérer le rôle des commerciaux, leurs attentes et obtenir le maximum d’eux.

Couverture du SaaS Sales Playbook
Manuel de vente SaaS

De quoi dois-je parler lors d'un examen des performances de vente ?

La vente moderne comporte aujourd’hui tellement de rôles différents qu’il est difficile de proposer une formule unique pour tous les vendeurs. Par exemple, l’évaluation des performances d’un RRD sera très différente de celle d’un gestionnaire de compte. Nous vous encourageons vivement à mettre en place des évaluations spécifiques et des indicateurs clés en fonction des différents rôles dans la vente.

Le processus d’évaluation des performances doit rester relativement informel – il ne s’agit pas d’une réunion disciplinaire, mais d’un espace sûr permettant à votre employé d’être ouvert et honnête. Votre représentant doit être à l’aise pour poser des questions dans un cadre privé et faire part de ses problèmes éventuels.

Chez Klozers, notre philosophie de gestion des ventes s’articule autour des quatre domaines de grande valeur de la vente, à savoir :

Trouver – que faisons-nous de manière constante et proactive pour trouver de nouvelles perspectives et opportunités de vente ?

Klozing – lorsque nous trouvons de nouvelles affaires, suivons-nous notre processus de vente et maximisons-nous l’opportunité ?

Croissance – sommes-nous en train de verrouiller activement de nouveaux comptes et d’augmenter les revenus qu’ils génèrent ?

Développement – que faisons-nous personnellement pour nous étirer, grandir, apprendre et nous dépasser ?

Combinez-les avec votre vision et vos valeurs fondamentales et, en vous concentrant sur ces quatre domaines, il est tout simplement impossible de ne pas vendre davantage.

Vos représentants commerciaux doivent en ressortir motivés et pleins d’énergie. Un 121 est un excellent moyen d’établir et de maintenir des relations solides avec votre équipe de vente. Un retour d’information doit toujours être fourni, en particulier lorsque le membre du personnel fait part de problèmes de performance ou de difficultés.

Un retour d’information constructif n’est jamais une mauvaise chose, mais les performances d’un employé n’augmentent jamais que par les éloges et la reconnaissance de toutes les bonnes choses qu’il a réalisées.

S’ils ont travaillé dur tout au long du mois et que c’est le seul moment que vous avez pour les rattraper, alors c’est leur seule chance d’entendre des éloges et des compliments qui les feront se sentir bien et travailler davantage.

Si le professionnel de la vente n’a jamais de nouvelles de son responsable et qu’on ne lui dit jamais quand il fait du bon travail, il peut parfois se sentir paranoïaque et ne pas être apprécié – personne ne veut que son équipe de vente se sente ainsi.

Modèle d'évaluation des performances de vente
Exemples d'évaluation des performances de vente

Feuille de route et plan de carrière

Une partie essentielle du processus d’évaluation des performances consiste à favoriser la croissance professionnelle, à fixer des objectifs de carrière au sein de l’entreprise : où veulent-ils aller dans ce travail ? Comment peuvent-ils s’y rendre ?

Peuvent-ils acquérir de l’expérience dans différents départements ? Y a-t-il une formation supplémentaire qu’ils peuvent suivre pour y arriver plus rapidement ?

Il est beaucoup plus facile que la plupart des entreprises ne le pensent de définir clairement des parcours d’apprentissage et il est essentiel de fournir à chaque employé des étapes simples qu’il peut suivre pour progresser.

Un professionnel de la vente doit être traité comme une personne qui grandit au sein de l’entreprise, et non comme un simple numéro. Par conséquent, discuter des différents parcours de carrière est un excellent moyen de montrer au professionnel de la vente tout le chemin qu’il peut parcourir.

Formation avancée en vente
Examens des performances de Klozers

121's pour les vendeurs travaillant à distance

Si vous avez des vendeurs qui travaillent à distance, un 121 est aussi important que les évaluations de performance. Si le travail à domicile a amélioré l’équilibre entre vie professionnelle et vie privée de nombreux professionnels de la vente, les a aidés à être plus productifs et rentables, pour beaucoup, il peut être source d’isolement et de solitude.

De nombreux vendeurs sont des “gens du peuple”. Ils s’épanouissent au contact d’autres êtres humains, ce qui est l’une des raisons pour lesquelles ils aiment être dans la vente. Le travail à domicile a été pour beaucoup un véritable changement de culture et un choc pour la plupart des vendeurs.

Les représentants commerciaux sont parfois réticents à prendre la parole et à poser des questions dans un contexte de groupe, ou s’il n’y a pas de relation avec le directeur commercial. Tout professionnel de la vente doit se sentir à l’aise sur son lieu de travail, même s’il est à la maison.

Pour les nouveaux employés, les 121 réunions et les réunions d’équipe sont également de bons moyens de briser la glace et d’apprendre à connaître ses collègues. Ainsi, ils se sentiront plus à l’aise pour venir vous voir lorsqu’ils auront besoin d’aide ou qu’ils auront un problème. Commencez par des séances pour apprendre à me connaître.

Ces entretiens sont très informels par rapport à un examen des performances et constituent un excellent moyen pour vous deux d’apprendre à vous connaître. Discutez de ce qu’ils aiment et n’aiment pas, de leurs passe-temps et intérêts, de ce qu’ils aiment faire pendant leur temps libre. En gardant un niveau personnel pour commencer, le membre du personnel se sentira très à l’aise et il est fort probable qu’il appréciera que vous ayez pris le temps d’apprendre à le connaître.

Suivi des évaluations des performances de vente

De nombreux directeurs des ventes sont des gestionnaires et non des leaders. Les meilleurs directeurs commerciaux travaillent dur pour soutenir leurs équipes de vente, contrairement à ceux qui dirigent leurs vendeurs et suivent des feuilles de calcul.

Souvent, la différence entre un manager et un leader réside simplement dans ce qu’ils font pour les vendeurs. Ce qui peut sembler insignifiant et sans importance pour le manager peut être le contraire pour les vendeurs. Les meilleurs managers se concentrent d’abord sur les personnes et ensuite sur le travail.

Cela dit, il ne fait aucun doute que cela peut être difficile, avec une pression constante pour atteindre ou dépasser les objectifs de vente.

En tant que directeur des ventes, vous devez vous assurer que vous assurez le suivi de toutes les actions dont vous avez discuté lors de l’évaluation des performances. La réunion doit toujours faire l’objet d’un compte rendu afin de fournir aux représentants des ventes une trace de tout ce qui a été discuté.

Cela permet également d’établir une feuille de route sur les objectifs à atteindre jusqu’au prochain examen des performances et contribue à les responsabiliser, ainsi que le directeur des ventes.

Il s’agit d’un excellent moyen de suivre les progrès, car il donne au directeur des ventes et au professionnel de la vente l’occasion de revoir les objectifs précédents et de discuter de la situation par rapport aux objectifs convenus et de ce qui doit être amélioré.

Les directeurs des ventes sont sans doute la partie la plus importante de toute équipe de vente. Ils fixent la barre en termes de performances des employés, de ce qui est acceptable et de ce qui ne l’est pas. Les grandes équipes de vente ont besoin de grands directeurs des ventes – investissez dès maintenant dans votre gestion des ventes.

Guide complet de la gestion des ventes
Formation à la gestion des ventes

SDR Sales Training Courses that Work

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SDR sales training courses

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

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

SDR Sales Training Courses – Top question from Google

How do you train an SDR?

Most SDR training courses highlight the following steps, or similar to help train your SDR team:

  • Use a sales training template.
  • Provide clear learning paths aligned with progression
  • Set expectations.
  • Build a culture of collaboration.
  • No-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question policy.
  • Create a template for SDR/Account Executive meetings.
  • Teach your Sales Development Team to be curious.
  • Constantly provide actionable feedback
  • Give your team time.

We think you can do much more than this.

Training your team of Sales Development Reps may start in the classroom (virtual or otherwise) however, this is just the start of the learning journey.  In order to build a successful sales organization there are many other areas you should consider.  We believe we have the best sdr training program called Legends Club.

SDR Sales Training Program
sdr sales training courses

Here’s the short answer – Run a 1 Day Sales Bootcamp

  • Session 1 – Sales Psychology.  Build the mindset, goals and activities of a Sales Winner. Discover the psychology behind every sale and how you can use this to your advantage.
  • Session 2 – Discovery and Qualifying.  In order to sell, you need to be in front of the right people, at the right time, with the right message.  Get this right and sales becomes a lot easier.
  • Session 3 – Mastering the complex Sale. How to identify different decision makers with different and often competing priorities.  
  • Session 4 – Filling your Sales Funnel. Discover short and long term strategies for driving new sales enquiries whilst maximising your productivity. This session includes our omnichannel lead generation approach and will demonstrate how to use the telephone, cold email and LinkedIn in combination to fill your sales funnel.

Whilst there is no doubt that ongoing learning via the “little and often” philosophy is important in terms of sales development, Sales Bootcamps are a great way to kick start the learning process.

SaaS Sales Training Bootcamps are typically 1 or 2 day sales courses.  They are intensive by nature and provide SDR’s with a vast amount of information from which they can refer back to. Sales Bootcamps work best when they are used in conjunction with an existing sales campaign and ongoing sales coaching. 

The bootcamps provide the training which is the knowledge, and the sales coaching helps the sdrs with the practical application of the knowledge. 

In addition to SDR training, Bootcamps are popular for training topics such as Sales Fundamentals training which is designed for people who are completely new to sales and need a lot of information quickly, as part of their onboarding process. 

SDR Sales Training

The job of a sales development representative (SDR) is a challenging and valued position within any business. It is important to ensure your SDRs are aware of their impact within the business and how their performance will help the business grow.

Unfortunately most Sales Development Reps tend to leave after a year. Most business owners will tell you the SDRs weren’t cut out for the position or that their SDRs left to climb the sales ladder elsewhere.

At Klozers, although we believe that could be partly true, it’s often a more complex situation.  

People typically leave because they fall out of love with their sales manager and the company.  Part of sales management is providing the best training possible and then continuing to build upon existing sales skills to help SDRs hit targets regularly.

Modern sales management includes providing professional development linked to a career path even if that means that the sales representative has to leave the company to develop their sales career. The more you invest in them the longer they will stay.

No sales professional wants to miss sales targets, nobody wants to work in a business where selling is like wading through treacle. People want to win, they want to sell, and a big part of sales management is making your team successful.

An SDR training course is a prerequisite for this and will help your sales team improve cold calling, social selling, communication skills and other sales skills unique to your service.

A Sales Professionals job never ends, there will always be prospects to serve! It only makes sense to establish a sales training program to help SDRs keep up-to-date on new sales trends, competitors, new product releases, new training tools and so on.

Not only will this help improve the efficiency of your business, this will enhance employee retention and job satisfaction.

The key to any successful SDR sales training program is to keep it simple and set clear expectations of what you expect from your Sales Team and what they can expect from you. This means building a strong culture of communication and collaboration within the team.

In addition to sales training we would encourage you to consider developing a comprehensive learning programme for your sales teams that include:

1. Company 

History, people

Sales Vision & Values

2. What we sell

Products and services,

3. What problems we solve

Pain points, value proposition, 

4. Who we sell to

Ideal client profile, Perfect Prospect Profile

5. How we sell

Sales Process

6. Sales Competencies

For a list of our 21 recommended sales competencies download our SaaS Sales Playbook here.

सास सेल्स प्लेबुक कवर

Sales Training Topics

Most SDR training plans will include topics such as setting targets, training, mentoring, culture, rejection, and customer personas. Topics such as customer personas for example are key to ongoing marketing success.

Understanding customer personas helps your SDR’s learn what drives prospects to purchase your product or service. This also helps your SDR’s to understand the customer profile that your business draws in, and helps your SDR team to narrow down what the prospect wants out of your company.

This is also a great way for your Sales Reps to have a natural yet targeted conversation whether that be by phone, email, or in person. 

At Klozers we use two different models for customer personas. The first is the ideal client profile or ICP which refers to the actual businesses that fit our criteria and secondly the perfect prospect profile. This profile is specific to the different buyers within and organisation and the differing pain pints they may have.

A really important topic to cover in your SDR training is rejection and mindset. We all experience rejection day to day, so why is it so discouraging when it happens when speaking to potential customers?

Most SDR’s are new to the role and want to prove their worth. Sales prospecting can be disheartening for them and quickly demotivate them. In sales, if you are not getting told no more than yes, then you are not talking to enough people.   The first ‘No’ an SDR receives will be the first of many.

A great way to learn from this experience would be to ask your prospect why they declined. Take a look at reviewing your SDR’s sales strategy and practice listening skills and responses.

Being told ‘No’ is common practice in the sales, how your Sales Rep handles that conversation is key to their progression within the sales world.

सेल्स प्रॉस्पेक्ट प्रोफाइल टेम्प्लेट
Perfect Prospect Profile Template

Sales Training Exercises

Before any Sales Professional makes a sales prospecting call, they should always be ready to answer the four most basic questions any potential customers may ask on the call such as:

  • Why is the SDR contacting the prospect?
  • Why should the prospect talk with the SDR?
  • What information does the SDR need from the prospect?
  • What questions or doubts might the prospect have?

A great way for your Sales team to prepare for these questions is to role play with their colleagues. Ask your SDR’s to put themselves in your prospect’s shoes.

An interesting way to include the team with this is to pick one SDR as the caller, and the other SDR’s to role play as the potential new prospect.

Ask each SDR role playing as the prospect to ask these questions in a quick fire round. This exercise allows your SDR playing the role of the caller to be quick on their feet when answering questions.

Another great exercise would be to ask each SDR in your team to give a brief talk on their favourite subject to the rest of the team. Challenge the other SDR’s in your team to take notes of how many filler words the speaker uses such as like, um, uh, well, so, okay etc.

The aim of this exercise is for the speaker to use as little filler words as they can. This will help your SDR’s appear more professional, confident and push their value proposition to their prospects

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Klozers Sales Training

Free SDR Training Courses

With so much free sales training available we are sometimes not the first choice everyone. A quick search on the internet will show that there are lots of free SDR training courses and materials all available online, picking the best one for you and your business is the tricky part.

A lot of the free online courses available are pre recorded and offer no chance to ask questions or interact with the sales trainer.  This is not a great learning environment. 

In addition to the importance of Live Training, we also understand that everyone learns differently, which is why it’s important to follow 4 key and easy steps, Consistency, assistance, practice, and progression.

1. Consistency

Ensure that your training for your SDR team is consistent. Scheduling in the training for your team shows your commitment to your team to help them become the best Sales Reps they can be.

It’s important to stick to your training schedule to show your team that you value them and their development. This is a great way to help keep your SDR’s within your business.

2. Assistance

Assist your team with their learning. Everyone learns differently and at their own pace. By researching different learning styles such as role playing, cold call games, and live call feedback you will help all the Sales Reps in your team. This is a great way to also include every SDR in the training program by running through different mock examples.

3. Practice

Here at Klozers, we firmly believe practice makes perfect. It’s important to remember that most SDR’s have little to no prior experience in sales development. A great way to get your SDR team started could be to set a task to complete.

For example, record your SDR’s cold calls and play them back. Ask your SDR team to provide 3 things they think they could’ve done to improve that call. Encourage your SDR’s to think of their tone of voice and the language they use during the call. This can help them understand what they are doing successfully, and what they can improve on.

4. Progression

Progression is what all SDR’s want to achieve, this is a reason why a lot of Sales Reps leave the business to pursue a career elsewhere. Creating a training plan which incorporates the SDR’s progression within the business is a great way to keep them on track, and understand the value they add to your business.

All Inside Sales Professionals wants to prove their worth and show they can do the job at hand, but make sure not to let your SDR’s run before they can walk!

A simple tip would be to include scheduled 1-1 meetings with the sales manager to discuss their progress, their sales pipeline, offer feedback and work out a development plan together for each SDR.

उन्नत बिक्री प्रशिक्षण रोलप्ले

Coaching Sales Behaviours | Bringing out the Best

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Coaching Sales Behaviours

Coaching Sales Behaviours – Top question from Google

How do you coach a sales person?

Unfortunately like sales there is no one way to coach a sales person that works every time. After all sales people are all individuals and therefore different so what works with one, may not work with the next.

With that said there are many commonalities and examples of best practice that will get you started on the path to success.

  1. Mindset. Success in sales like many other areas in life is hugely dependant on mindset. Confidence, self belief, imposter syndrome, phone fear and self sabotage are all to common in sales people. With the right support these problems can be overcome, however, there is one area of mindset that many ignore – hunger. The best sales people are all hungry. Hungry to learn, hungry to help others and hungry for their own success. Whilst Vision Boards and Goal setting undoubtedly have a positive impact if the sales person you are coaching is not hungry for their own success you have a major problem. Many sales people ended up in sales by accident and many sales people are simply stuck in their current role and find it easier to stay than move on. Research from the Objective Management Group shows that between Sales Management & HR, 77% of sales hires are the wrong people. You can teach strategy, you can teach skills, but you can’t teach hunger.
  1. Planning. Many companies and sales managers lack the time to implement personal development plans to their sales teams. Coaching often then becomes ad hoc, unstructured which in turn is reflected in the outcomes. In order for sales coaching to be successful and deliver an ROI, some simple planning needs to take place. In our experience it’s always best to work backwards from the objectives and tasks that the business need to happen. From there managers should document the skills required to successfully complete the tasks, followed by a GAP analysis, highlighting where the sales people are now, versus where they need to be. Lastly, this should all be documented and progress tracked to show the benefit for both the business and the coachee.
  1. Focus. When coaching sales people it’s important to find a balance between what should be done and what can be done. Rather than giving sales people 3-4 different objectives after the coaching, we have always found it best to only give the coachee one objective to complete before the next session. This allows the sales rep to focus on one skill and perfect it before moving on to the next. A laundry list of objectives is rarely completed to any level of competency that the business would desire.
  1. Data. It’s important for sales coaching to be both objective and fair in order for it to be successful. Where possible we therefore always advocate a data led approach. Data demonstrating the success and best practice of others is difficult for sales reps to deny. This in turn leads to the importance of CRM in any sales organisation, as this is where the majority of data resides.
  1. Coaches. For obvious reasons coaching is different to management, so a sales coach cannot force a sales rep to do anything in terms of the outcomes of each session. Conversely, if Sales Managers are doing the coaching then they can instruct the sales people to do things, however, if the manager has to “tell” the coachee what to do, then there is typically a problem with the mindset and any success will be limited.
Sales Motivation

At Klozers our Sales Performance coaching uses Sales Scorecards, which ensure accountability for the students. This is first used to identify a baseline, which is used to kick start and structure the sales coaching. To be effective, sales coaching should look at sales in a holistic manner. This will include addressing the all the key components of sales success, which are Mindset, Sales Craft, Activity and Development.

All successful sales people have the right mindset for success. Throughout a sales career, it is impossible to achieve success on every call or presentation. As such, salespeople need to be resilient and bounce back from rejection. Controlling our mind is a hugely important part of a successful career in sales.

We can use simple Vision Boards to identify personal and business goals. Once these have been identified it’s important to draw a correlation between the two which helps ensure sales people are focussed on the goals of the business not just their own.

Craft covers the key sales skills and competencies required to be a successful sales professional. Most modern sales roles require a huge variety of sales skills, some of which are forever changing given the fast paced nature of sales and marketing.

Activity covers the important aspects of preparation, goals, sales planning and sales actions. Development covers an ongoing commitment to improving sales learning. Reflecting on past performance is an important aspect of this section. At regular intervals it is important that salespeople reflect on their performance and use this to adapt their techniques or seek additional coaching or training.

Often when reflecting, salespeople and most sales managers tend to focus on the negative aspects of performance (e.g. the bits that didn’t quite work), but it is equally as important to reflect on the positives. If a certain sales pitch has been successful, then salespeople should reflect on what went well, and how that can be implemented in other sales pitches.

Sales coaching can be conducted online or in person, in a group setting or on a 1-2-1 basis. Regardless of the delivery method, the same coaching models are used.

Coaching Sales Behaviours

How do you coach an underperforming sales person?

Sales coaching can motivate and enthuse an underperforming sales professional or team more widely. People are hard wired to resist change, and as such sales coaches need to be mindful of this and adapt their coaching methods to suit.

With that said, if you have an underperforming sales person you should follow this process (dependant on the HR laws in your country of residence).

  1. Via a one to one meeting have an open and honest conversation with the sales rep around why the business thinks they are underperforming and what will happen if it continues. In most cases this does not necessarily mean they will lose their job. It could mean they have to retake initial training or have additional coaching. Every situation will vary but it’s important to have this conversation.
  1. Work with the sales rep to understand the root cause of the problem and once you have done this work with them to develop an action plan that will help them overcome their current performance gap. It’s important to include the sales rep in the planning to get their buy in. The plan should detail the responsibilities of the sales rep and the level of performance required.
  1. Lastly, the company and the sales manager should do all they possibly can to help and support the sales rep throughout the coaching period. This includes reviewing their own management and leadership style.

In some cases the sales rep may have already mentally checked out as no one wants to stay in a role that they are not performing in. In some cases, however, it is possible to turn results around and it’s always worth the investment in time and training given how much it costs to replace a sales person.

What is the key to coaching a successful sales team?

The key to coaching a successful sales team is ensuring that there is a culture of learning and growing throughout the team. In order to feed that culture you will require a continuous programme of training and coaching in place. There is no quick fix to achieving the best results.

As identified earlier, one-off sales training courses may have a short-term impact, but after only 30 days its success will ware off. As such, a continuous programme of professional development needs to be in place.

Employees want to feel valued by their employers, and now expect employers to contribute towards their professional development.

Without this in place, there is a concern that your best salespeople will look for other jobs. Recruiting new staff is a resource heavy and expensive process, and you still may end up with the wrong sales staff.

Hiring the wrong sales staff can have direct (lost sales) and indirect (damage to your brand) consequences for your company, so retaining the best staff is vital.

Klozers Sales Management Training

Sales coaching techniques

Sales coaches can use a range of techniques, and some coaches prefer certain techniques more than others. Whichever technique is used, sales coaching should be driven by data and be as factual as possible.

To be effective sales coaching should question the students, and a mixture of directive, non directive and collaborative style questioning can be used.

After sales coaching has been conducted it is important to measure the effectiveness of the coaching to see if it has delivered a suitable ROI.

If the sales coaching isn’t providing to be effective, then amendments will need to be made to it, either in the form of its content, delivery or programme.

Sales coaching models

There is a wide range of sales coaching models available, however, at Klozers we use either the PEDAL model which is Directive Coaching or the GROW model. The easiest way to explain the differences are:

PEDAL – Directive in style. Solving someone’s problem for them.

GROW – Non Directive in style. Helping someone solve their own problem.

In the PEDAL model the process is:

P = Position. The coach positions the reasoning/need for a new sales skill or sales process.

E = Explain. The coach explains how the new skills work.

D = Demonstrates. The coach demonstrates how to execute the new sales skills.

A = Assess. The sales professional practices the new skill and the coach assesses their competency and provides feedback.

L = Links. The coach then links the new skill to the sales reps role and key objectives.

The PEDAL coaching model is commonplace in areas where the correct execution of a skill is paramount and no choice is allowed. For example, when sales professionals need to comply with regulatory procedures, or when sales people need to follow a prove sales process.

But what does the GROW model involve?

GROW stands for:

G = Goal. What are the salespersons goals for the session?

R = Reality. What is the current reality?

O = Obstacles. What obstacles are holding the salesperson or team back?

W = Way. What way and actions do you commit to taking to move forward?

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ग्रो सेल्स कोचिंग मॉडल

Sales Performance Coaching

Selecting the right sales coach is an important step towards improving the sales performance in your team. Quota carrying sales managers can often be swamped by their own workloads, leaving them with little time to fully dedicate towards coaching sales behaviours.

In these circumstances, to avoid missed opportunities and good staff leaving, external sales coaching could be the answer. Our expert coaches at Klozers can help you with all of your sales coaching and training needs.

How to Build an Outbound Sales Team

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How to Build an Outbound Sales Team

How to Build an Outbound Sales Team – Top question from Google

What is outbound sales?

Outbound sales is the process of a sales team or salespeople initiating engagement with potential and existing customers. This could encapsulate trying to secure new customers, up selling to existing customers, or general account management. In contrast, inbound sales relies on a company’s marketing strategy to drive customer interest, and customers will contact the company to enquire about their services. This blog post will tell you how to build an outbound sales team.

Preparing to go Outbound

In the rush to go outbound many companies either overlook or pay little attention to the core foundation of every successful outbound sales campaign – their value proposition. Without this most campaigns will fail at best, at worst, they will fail you will lose market traction. you will lose your best sales people and you will also lose a lot of money.

A Proven Value Proposition

Many companies make the mistake of trying to scale their sales operations without a proven value proposition with disastrous effects.  Whether you chose to build your own outbound team or to subcontract to a specialist you need a proven value proposition.  The more time and money you invest on proving your value proposition will be returned ten fold in your results.  This does not just apply to Startups.  Those that believe they have already proven their value proposition can equally benefit by refining and fine tuning what they have. 

Words Sell

Whilst most of us would accept the importance of words in the world of Business to consumer few people in B2B dedicate sufficient time and energy to finding the right words to describe our products and services.  Ask and Pay per click specialist who is restricted to 30 characters for the headline and 90 for the description of the importance of word choice.  That’s characters not words.

Technology

We are blessed in the modern sales world with lots of great outbound technologies which makes the outbound process both easier and more productive. From intent data, to auto diallers, to call recording and artificial intelligence there are a plethora of great tools to choose from that will help your outbound team be successful. Be sure to invest the time and budget to arm your sales team with the technology they need.

Sales Leadership

An often overlooked area of business is sales management. Many sales managers have come from a sales background and were at some stage a top sales rep. Unfortunately the skills required for modern sales management are very different to just selling and the position of sales manager is a key hire for any business. Without a great sales manager your best sales reps will leave and the worst reps will stay which is the exact opposite of what you want to happen. Company culture is hugely important in any business and no more so than in an inbound and outbound sales team.

In short, without a proven value proposition and good sales management, you will spend more money and take much longer to get where you want to go. These three areas are an essential component for a scalable outbound process.

Outbound Sales Strategies

Building an Inhouse Team or Outsourcing

When developing an outbound sales team, sales managers and company owners have two choices. They can build an in-house sales team or they can outsource the process to an external agency or group of salespeople.

Each option has its own positives and negatives, and sales managers and company owners should consider these carefully before making any changes.

Through outsourcing their outbound sales operations, companies can hire people with a proven track record of success that they might not otherwise be able to afford.

Outsourcing can be more economic for some companies, as they do not have to resource staff training or office space for them. It can also provide more cost flexibility, as the salespeople will not be tied down to long-scale contracts.

In-house sales teams are much more likely to develop excellent product knowledge over time, which they can convey to prospective clients. Outsourcing can also result in a lack of control of the sales process, and the company cannot guarantee that the leads generated are of a sufficient quality until much later.

There are also concerns that an outbound sales team may not be as “bought into” your product, company or company ethos, and this could be purveyed to prospective clients.

Remember, a poor outbound experience is the fastest way to destroy your brand. Badly executed outbound calls will have a negative impact on your brand and could lose you valuable market traction.

Outbound prospecting particularly cold calling, is very different to responding to inbound sales leads. Your sales team and lead generation strategy should be built with this in mind.

वेब आधारित बिक्री प्रशिक्षण
Outbound Sales Strategies

What are outbound sales activities?

Outbound sales requires salespeople to go to the potential clients. In contrast, inbound sales where potential clients come to the company, either for more information or to buy their product/service.

Therefore, traditionally outbound sales does not include any marketing or product development tasks.

Outbound selling can be very labour intensive, and in the case of cold calling it needs a high volume of calls to have a meaningful impact on sales. This is because:

80% of cold calls go straight to voice mail – Sales Intel

It takes an average of 18 attempts to reach a technology buyer – Gartner

In addition to being labour intensive, outbound sales has a high churn rate in terms of staff. Many companies struggle to retain the people they have, let alone build a high performing team of SDR’s.

Lead generation is the starting point of an outbound sales process. Some company’s will have a dedicated in-house lead generation team, whilst others leave it for their general salespeople to handle.

In most cases when outbound sales is left to general salespeople it simply doesn’t happen. Sales people have a skill of always finding something “more important” to do than lead generation.

Outbound sales is a contact sport, pure and simple and requires salespeople to contact prospective customers. This could be by telephone, email, LinkedIn or face to face, however predominantly this is done via phone and email.

From our own experience SDR’s who use a multichannel approach are much more successful than those who are only using the telephone or email.

Often as part of the outbound sales role SDR’s will undertake what is known as sales qualification process. This involves a salesperson determining whether or not the lead is likely to become a customer or not.

Once the leads have been qualified, leads are typically then passed to a Business Development Rep whose responsible for any form of product demo and closing the deal.

In more traditional sales organisations this may include setting appointments for the companies field sales reps. The length of the sales process will depend on the target market, the industry and the customer.

As an outbound sales person you will be expected to do the following:

  • Research leads
  • Generate new sales leads
  • Qualifying inbound sales leads and build a sales pipeline
  • Setting appointments with potential or existing customers and follow the sales process
  • Follow up proposals
  • Cold and warm calling
  • Cold and warm emails
  • Social Selling
  • Customer service calls, with a view to upselling
  • Product demos
  • Account Management

Outbound prospecting is especially vital for companies with little or no marketing budget. This is this because in these circumstances, prospective customers are unlikely to come to the company in great numbers, and as such the company will have to go to the potential clients.

Outbound sales strategy

Having a great team of outbound sales reps important, but if they don’t have a good sales strategy to follow, they are unlikely to be successful. Creating a sales strategy should be one of your first tasks when establishing an outbound sales team.

A good outbound sales strategy requires the right sales playbook (script, methods etc.) and the right methods to measure success. Opinions on sales scripts vary, but if you develop a good sales script, it ensures a consistent approach and can help new sales reps get up to speed faster.

Our research here at Klozers, find that sales teams with playbooks are 33% more likely to be high performers. If a sales script is used, preparation should be used so the salesperson will appear to be talking as naturally as possible.

Different sales methods should be explored to see if they will result in more successful sales. For example, consultative selling could result in an increase in sales.

Preparation is key for a successful outbound sales strategy. Salespeople should have all of the data, scripts and tools they need before they start calling. They should also have an excellent knowledge of the products or services.

Whatever sales strategy is used, it is important that there are processes in place to monitor its success. If certain aspects of the strategy haven’t been successful, then either the sales strategy can be amended, or extra training and coaching should be organised.

Data can be used to monitor the most successful times to make outbound sales calls. For example, if the data shows that outbound calls are more successful on a Wednesday afternoon, then greater focus should be placed on this time, and team meetings should be avoided at that time.

Outbound and Inbound Sales Support

At Klozers the inbound and outbound sales process that we teach in our sales training is based on the success we have had in our own business. We will show you exactly the sales strategies and outbound methods that we use every day to target customers, qualifying leads, make a sales call, cold calling, cold emailing and drive customer engagement.

Furthermore, if you would like to optimise your inbound and outbound channels we can teach you how we use content marketing combined with search engine optimisation, to turn our website in to a lead generation machine.

We have a number of ways we support SaaS companies. From advice on recruitment and value proposition development, through to telesales, social selling training and strategy training, we can help you win more business, grow your business. and have more fun along the way.

Klozers has been selected among the Top Lead Generation Companies by Designrush

Consultative Sales Training | How Customers Want to Buy

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consultative sales training course

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.

Consultative Selling Approach

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.
Consultative Selling Approach

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.   

Coaching for Sales Leaders – how coaching drives growth

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Coaching for Sales Leaders

How do you coach a Sales Manager? – Top question from Google

How do you coach a Sales Manager? – the short answer

To coach a sales manager, you must have an agreed sales strategy and a sales plan with KPI’s.  The role of the manager is to execute the plan in line with the KPI’s, which is where they may need sales coaching.

Coaching Sales Leaders – here’s a more detailed look at what you can do to support your sales leaders.

Many sales managers have been promoted based on their sales skills and performance.  Whilst these are valuable, the role of a sales manager is very different and thus requires different skills.  The simplest example is coaching itself.  Most salespeople have never coached another sales rep and the whole process is often new to them.

1. What are the business benefits of sales coaching?

The benefits of sales coaching are an important part of building a business case for your coaching programme, no matter how big or small.  Whilst every business is different, we would suggest you take a data led approach to evaluate the “size of the prize” – the potential revenue benefits.

Let’s pretend that our top sales rep generates £500K in revenue per annum in an average year. In bigger teams of 10 plus sales people you should take the average of the top 3.  There is no rule to follow here other than it must be truthful.

Next, take the average revenue figure that your B players – the middle sixty percent of your team generate per annum and as an example lets assume as a group they average £400k per annum.

The potential opportunity from sales training and coaching is therefore £100k per sales rep.  In most cases the size of the opportunity is circa 10 x the cost of the training and coaching. 

We encourage every client to work these figures out for themselves.  Once everyone has agreed these figures then the business can work with the Sales Manager to create a coaching plan and set some KPIs. 

Verkoop Coaching Kies Coach
Coaching for Sales Leaders

2. How do you coach effectively in sales?

Effective coaching starts before the coaching itself. As a business we believe that coaching is not for everyone, as not everyone is coachable.  This can be for a number of reasons, however, in our experience there are two main reasons as follows:

  • People are not motivated to learn and improve themselves
  • People do not believe that they need to learn and improve themselves

Your business will be no different – some people will be interested and respond to training and coaching and some people will only attend because they are told to.  From our experience, Sales Leader have to make difficult choices and whilst there is no one size fits all we recommend the following:

Segment your sales team by current performance.

A Group – the top 20% of your sales team that mostly hit target.

B Group – the middle 60% that miss targets but are motivated to improve, want to learn and will respond to coaching and training.

C Group – the bottom 20% of people who never hot their sales target and whilst they may need training and coaching they have no interest in it and won’t respond.

Next, work with the A players to develop a coaching plan based on what they do that makes then A players.  Where possible use the A players to co deliver some of the training and coaching to the B players. 

The most important part here is to make sure that you hold the B players accountable to what has been agreed and taught. 

This just leaves the C-Group.  The easiest thing that any sales leader can do is ignore under performance.  Some people end up in sales by accident and they are simply a round peg in a square hole.  They may not admit it but these C players are unhappy, as no sales rep likes to be unsuccessful.  The most difficult task of any sales leader is to let someone go, even under performers but that’s why they are a leader, that’s what drives success. 

As a Sales Leader when you retain underperforming sales reps you are subconsciously self-sabotaging your own sales team.  You’re a – player salespeople will look around your office and say to themselves “why should I work hard, why should I go the extra mile, when Jonny is still here and never hits a sales target?”.  Before you know it they will have resigned and you are left trying to hire there replacement.

The best salespeople want to work with others at the top of their game, they want to train and get better, that’s what makes them the best.

So if you want your coaching to be effective you must first find people who want to be coached.

3. What is the key to coaching a successful sales team?

There are many key components to coaching a successful sales team and from our experience we would suggest:

  • The best coaching is based on data because data is difficult to argue with
  • Coaching needs to be regular and consistent to for the business and individual to benefit
  • You should follow a coaching process such as the GROW Coaching model
  • Coaching should be a KPI for both the coach and the coachee
  • Coaching should be based around established best practice and not theory
  • Each coaching session should be documented so you can demonstrate progress
  • Each coaching session should have an agreed list of actions as an outcome that are revisited.
  • Coaching sessions are not opportunities to critique salespeople or performance.  They need to be positive and supportive.
  • Coaching should focus on the lead indicators of success not the lag indicators.
Coaching for Sales Leaders

4. What does good sales coaching look like?

In our experience, the best starting point for good sales coaching is capturing and documenting what best practice in sales within the organisation currently looks like.  Once documented this provides a baseline that no one can deny is achievable. 

By best practice in sales, we mean the entire sales process from opportunity creation through to post sale whereby the customer is completely satisfied and happy to provide referrals. 

In most cases lead generation is the biggest obstacle for salespeople, so demonstrating via real life examples of where a new enquiry converted to a sales and a subsequent referral to another client  helps break down the “this won’t work mentality”.

Once you have identified this best practice, it’s important to map out the sales activities at each stage of the sales process.  Again, in most cases the biggest problems are typically found at the start of the sales process when your team are trying to generate new sales leads.

Next up, document the type and number of activities that the top sales performer within the organisation does in an average week.  This then becomes the baseline for sales activity.   Be sure to document the lead indicators or KPI’s and not the lag indicators. 

For example sales revenue is a lag indicator and if we use this as a KPI in an organisation with a 6 months sales cycle then it will be six months before we know if we have been successful.  Look for the lead indicators – the sales behaviours that lead to the revenue.

Now the sales coaching process can start. For example, if the average sales activity of the top performer is 50 dials a day, 5 discovery calls and 2 presentations from which they close one deal, then the role of the sales coach is to bring every other member of your sale team up to this level.

5. What challenges do you face when coaching salespeople?

The majority of challenges when sales managers are coaching salespeople revolves around two main areas:

  • Sales activity or behaviours – we call this Productivity.  These are the actual sales behaviours required to generate new leads, close deals etc.  The majority of these sales behaviours have no immediate impact or reward, and in a society that is heavily influenced by the instant gratification of likes and shares, many salespeople struggle with the discipline of constantly prospecting when the reward can be months down the line.
  • Skills & Knowledge – we call this Performance.  Whilst productivity coaching is focussed around getting more done, performance coaching is about increasing conversion.  Increasing the number of leads that convert to an opportunity and the number of opportunities that convert to deals can have a dramatic effect on profitability. 

Whilst these areas are important there is a much bigger challenge we often find when coaching and it is simply motivation.  The top performers are so self-motivated they find their own answers to the points above. 

Motivation or rather a lack of it can be caused by a multitude of things, however, unless the sales manager can find a way to help the sales team motivate themselves then they will struggle.

Motivation can come from within and it’s important to tie the business goals to the personal goals of the sales team.  Whilst goals are important, what’s more important is to find a “cause”. A cause is self-fuelling, it has an energy all of it’s own that drives people forward. 

Hoe motiveer je verkopers zonder geldv
Coaching for Sales Leaders

6. The Impact of Coaching on Sales Performance

Coaching impacts an individual in two different ways. The first is tangible and therefore quite easy to measure, however, the second is intangible and arguably more important, but difficult to measure.

What we mean by the tangible impact are mostly skills based activities such as questioning, telephone, discovery, presentation, negotiation skills and the plethara of other skills that the modern sales person requires to be successful.

There are a number of ways and different tools that can help you measure the impact of skills coaching. However, it’s worth first thinking of the journey that learners go on as they learn new skills.

As demonstrated by the Theory of Learning, learners move through four stages of learning before they reach peak performance.

a) Unconscious Incompetence – the learner is inept at the skill but unaware of this.

b) Conscious Incompetence – the learner is inept but is now aware of this.

c) Conscious Competence – the learner can perform the skill well but needs to think about it

d) Unconscious Incompetence – the learner can perform the skill without thinking about it.

The speed by which learners move through the four stages is dictated by the time invested in learning the new skill, the learning support available.

Unfortunately in sales, sometimes people need to fail first before they understand there might be a different approach that they could benefit from adopting. These people are not coachable and will always resist any form of intervention.

Next up is the intangible impact on the individual which as we said is much more difficult to assess. In sales one of the most important intangible benefits is confidence. Without confidence salespeople will simply never be successful.

It takes a certain level of confidence to prospect, to present, to negotiate etc, however in sales confidence is fragile, it gets shipped away with every unsuccessful call, every no from a prospect and every failed negotiation.

The biggest killer of confidence is often the empty sales pipeline. Once it’s empty is usually much harder to refill your sales funnel as your confidence becomes overwhelmed with desperation and you enter a vicious cycle of decline.

In addition to confidence, another important intangible impact from coaching comes in the form of Emotional Intelligence. In short Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the art of identifying and managing emotions both in ourselves and those around us.

Sales can be a rollercoaster of emotions and controlling these is never easy but also managing the emotions of the people around you is hugely important. At a presentation, a negotiation or a simple sales conversation the emotions of your prospect and how you respond can be the difference between winning the sale or not.

7. Talk to us

Klozers provide Exec Sales Coaching and Sales Performance Coaching services across four time zones. Our sweetspot is working with small and medium size businesses to help them take on the big brands within their industry and win.

Our team a have a wealth of experience and are happy to provide an initial consultation at no charge.

Sales Coaching – For Individuals and Sales Teams

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Sales Coaching

There’s a new way to deliver sales growth…

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

1. Sales Coaching - Why Invest in Coaching?

At Klozers we love sales coaching.  Watching people or a company who had previously struggled, suddenly find their feet and take off, is one of the main benefits of our job. 

However, as with anything in business, sales coaching must provide real value and a financial benefit to the business.  Unfortunately, many companies still do not invest in professional coaching for their salespeople and the most common reason for this is the cost. 

One could argue that if you can’t afford sales coaching then there is an even greater need for it.  Perhaps it’s easier for people to blame the cost, than for the coaching profession to admit they could do more to help justify the costs.

We were in that position ourselves until we changed the format of our own sales coaching in order to make it easier for our clients to measure the increases in their pipeline and the subsequent sales revenue that comes from this.  If you would like to learn more about this and how you can change your own sales coaching process then you can jump to the end here.

2. Sales Training vs Sales Coaching - what's the difference?

Many people get confused between what is sales training and what is sales coaching.  Not only is training and coaching different, they also have different outputs which are really important.

Whereby sales training is about the transfer of knowledge, Sales Coaching is about the practical implementation of that knowledge in the field.

The easiest way to think of this is if your company has technical people like engineers or software developers.  The training is what a developer would go through to learn how to write the code.

The coaching is what the developer would need to turn the code into a meaningful application for your business. This means that coaching is the part that drives productivity in the sales team.

One of the main benefits of coaching is that it reinforces the new skills and techniques learnt during the training.  Without coaching studies show that up to 98% of knowledge is lost within 30 days.

In other words, one off event-based training sessions have a very limited impact on sales productivity.

3. When to coach and when not to coach

A recent study on Sales Coaching identified it as one of the most productive activities for any sales team, however, not every sales rep is coachable.  Some salespeople have a “superiority complex” and don’t believe they can either learn or improve. 

This can be falsely reinforced by hitting sales targets that are too low or by being the top sales performer in a group.  Other people will not responding to coaching as improving sales invariably means changing sales behaviours and every human being struggles to change their behaviours.

The last reason some salespeople do not respond to coaching is because they are simply stuck in their own comfort zone, and without any really powerful reason to change they simply carry on as before.

The irony is of course that in the majority of cases these people are in the most need of training and coaching.  With that said, unless there are exceptional circumstances you should not invest time or money in coaching people who have no desire to improve. 

You must either accept them as they are and the potential negative impact they will have on the wider group, or you must have one of those ”management” conversations with them.

Get started with our Sales Performance Coaching

Learn more »

4. Sales Coaching Models

There are many sales coaching models and frameworks that you can choose from.  The one we use both internally and externally is the GROW model which we find provides the simplicity and flexibility we require.  

It’s worth noting that coaching in sales can be very different to other forms of coaching.  For example, in Exec coaching, coaches are encouraged not to provide the answers and to focus on the questions. 

This forces the coachee to come up with the answer and the though process is that because its their idea they are more likely to believe it and then act on it. 

In sales when there are potentially millions of dollars in terms of deal values up for grabs and time is of the essence, the best sales coaches will switch from a consultative coaching process to directive coaching whereby they are training, coaching and advising the coachee what they need to do.

Grow Sales Coaching Modell
GROW Sales Coaching Model

Opportunities for Coaching

There are many areas within sales that lend themselves to sales coaching.  The most common areas Managers should be focussing on for coaching we have found are around:

Sales Activity
Accountability
Lead Generation
Pipeline Coaching
Qualifying/disqualifying

Deal Coaching
Field Coaching
Pre-call planning
Post-call debriefing
Storytelling

5. The Six Biggest Benefits of Sales Coaching

1. Growing Sales Revenues

The more adept your employees become at selling, the more revenue they will generate for your business. We use the word employees because sales has changed and the most productive companies have people in every department that can sell to one degree or another. 

For example, many companies who have now aligned their sales and marketing now acknowledge that great salespeople can do marketing and great marketers can sell. 

Best in class companies have expanded this to their operations team who are now positioned as thought leaders and subject matter experts.  This helps build brand authority and helps to differentiate companies in the marketplace.

By investing in training based on the very latest strategies, techniques and market activity, you can gain a real edge over your competitors.

2. Increased Sales Productivity

Productivity can be difficult to measure in many roles, however, in sales there is a tangible figure every month that can be used as a good indicator. 

That’s not to say that your MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) or other revenue goals are the only indicator of productivity, but it’s always the ultimate figure that sales reps are judged by. 

Whereby sales training is about the transfer of knowledge, Sales Coaching is about the practical implementation of that knowledge in the field.  This means that coaching is the part that drives productivity in the sales team. 

With studies showing that 83% of employees want to learn new skills sales training and coaching can make your team more productive and efficient. Quality sales coaching sessions can inspire your team and help them get out of a rut.

You may find that some of your employees feel that they know all there is to know about driving sales. However, the market is always changing, and what works one year isn’t always as effective 12 months later.

Some of your employees may have more sales potential than they think, and training and coaching can help them unlock this.

3. Closing Bigger & Better Deals

Many times human beings create their own glass ceilings and get stuck.  Salespeople are susceptible to this and often suffer from self limiting beliefs around deal sizes, sales behaviours and the whole sales process. 

Sales training can give your staff the skills they need to secure bigger, more lucrative deals, however without coaching they will quickly lose the new skills and revert back to type.

A good sales coach helps embed the new skills and strategies your sales reps learn in training and helps hold them accountable to using the new skills. As your team become more knowledgeable and confident, they’re more likely to close more deals and bigger ones. 

By using highly experienced sales coaches who live and breathe sales you are in effect fast tracking your team past all the typical problems they will encounter that slow down company growth.

Your team will learn about the latest best practices that they can follow whilst attempting to close deals. The more successful your sales reps become, the more their confidence will grow. Success breeds success.

4. Win More New Clients

Often the most difficult activity in sales is generating new business.  Sales prospecting, lead generation, whatever you call it in your business filling the top of your sales funnel is always a challenge in B2B sales.

The problem with prospecting is that nobody wants to do it, but it still needs to be done.  Many of the problems associated with sales prospecting are connected to the mindset of the sales reps. 

It’s easy to churn out 70 calls a day, and even when you achieve some success it’s difficult to get motivated to come back in day after day and make more calls. 

The job of the modern sales coach isn’t just to help improve your telephone skills, or the number of dials you make every day. A great sales coach will take a more strategic approach, and work with you on the bigger picture – revenue goals, sales coals, sales campaigns that dramatically increase your sales results.

This in turn helps to motivate and inspire your staff, and get them thinking more strategically about the sales process.   

5. Boost Workplace Morale

Great sales coaching can also boost confidence and improve morale amongst your staff. Research by LinkedIn shows that 91% of people agree that teams that learn new skills together are more successful.

Furthermore 90% of people surveyed believe that team learning helps foster a sense of belonging to the organisation.

Whilst not everyone will, the majority of your team members are likely to appreciate the effort you’ve put into training them, and helping them improve their knowledge and skills.

Investing in training shows your staff that you care about their career development and want them to achieve more. If staff feel valued, they are more likely to meet their goals and stay with the organisation longer.

Employee satisfaction can be worth its weight is key when it achieving customer satisfaction and meeting business targets. Training can also refresh their knowledge so they can follow and new best practices and anything they may have forgotten or become unclear about.

6. Increased Decision Making by Sales Reps

Many companies struggle to grow because there are bottlenecks in their internal decision-making process.  These bottlenecks occur when sales reps do not have the confidence or knowledge to make any form of decision. 

This makes companies less agile and slow to react to changes in the market.  Many companies are investing in sales training and coaching in order to improve the decision-making skills of their sales leadership team.

Effective sales coaching can help your team recognise and capitalise on opportunities to drive not only your business forward, but their professional development too.

Sales trainers act as a sounding board and can listen to your Teams ideas and help them fine-tune them to make them more effective in real-world situations.

Other benefits of sales coaching are that your team can become more creative and you will foster an environment where they feel more comfortable discussing new ideas.

6. Virtual or Remote Sales Coaching

During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 many salespeople were forced to work from home. Homeworking was easier for some than others, however, many studies showed that people felt less connected and even unsettled when working from home. 

Many Field Salespeople who had spent their lives on out on the road where suddenly confined to their home and confronted with a completely new way of selling. These are exactly the sort of scenarios where coaching can help people adjust to new circumstances and maintain performance.

In many cases sales reps had to retrain on how to sell remotely using tools like MS Teams and Zoom.  Sales training and coaching can bring your remote team together and make it more than the sum of its parts.

The best sales trainers don’t just focus on boosting individual performance but foster a sense of teamwork and unity between your staff. To close big deals in the modern sales world takes a Team and not just one individual.  

If everyone is using a common sales language and are working together at the best of their abilities, you’re more likely to close bigger and better deals than ever before.

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Behavioural Sales Coaching

7. Sales Coaching Tips

1. Focus on One-on-One Coaching

One of the most impactful sales coaching tips is to prioritize one-on-one coaching sessions. Sales representatives often struggle with specific challenges unique to their roles. By tailoring these sessions to the individual’s needs, a sales coach can offer the most relevant content and actionable advice. This personalized approach enables sales reps to make progress more effectively, ultimately achieving their business goals and hitting quotas.

2. Implement an Effective Coaching Program

An effective coaching program is essential for any sales organization looking to improve its sales performance. By regularly conducting coaching sessions on a monthly basis, sales managers can keep their teams on track. The best coaching programs include a formal process for providing ongoing feedback, focusing on areas for improvement, and setting clear objectives. Implementing such a program can significantly impact your team’s effectiveness and overall success.

3. Encourage Role Play and Real-Life Scenarios

Role play is a crucial component of sales coaching that allows salespeople to practice real-life scenarios in a safe environment. This technique not only prepares them for potential sales situations but also helps them to refine their selling techniques and overcome common obstacles. By simulating conversations with prospects, sales reps can better articulate their value propositions, handle objections, and close deals more effectively.

4. Offer Constructive Criticism and Praise

Balancing constructive criticism with praise is vital in sales coaching. While it’s important to address areas where sales reps need to improve, recognizing their strengths and achievements is equally crucial. Offering encouragement and celebrating small wins can boost self-motivation and foster a positive coaching environment. Remember, the goal is to create an environment where salespeople feel supported and motivated to excel.

5. Align Coaching with Business Goals

To ensure your sales coaching efforts lead to tangible results, it’s important to align your coaching activities with your organization’s business goals. Regularly reviewing progress toward quotas, discussing action plans, and adjusting strategies as needed will help keep your team focused on what matters most. By aligning coaching with business objectives, you can create a win-win scenario where both individual reps and the organization as a whole achieve success.

6. Utilize Technology for Continuous Improvement

Leveraging technology like CRM systems and sales analytics tools can enhance the effectiveness of your coaching program. These tools provide valuable insights into sales performance, helping coaches identify areas for improvement and track progress over time. Additionally, video recordings of sales calls can be reviewed during coaching sessions to offer specific, actionable feedback. Incorporating technology into your coaching process not only improves efficiency but also ensures that your coaching remains data-driven and impactful.

7. Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning

Sales coaching should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than a one-time event. Encouraging a culture of continuous learning within your sales organization is key to long-term success. Provide your team with professional development opportunities, such as sales training courses or workshops, to help them grow their skills. A great coach knows that developing people is a continuous journey, one that requires commitment, support, and the right resources.

8. Best Practices for Sales Managers in Coaching Sessions

When it comes to improving the performance of sales representatives, the role of a sales manager in coaching sessions is crucial. Conducting effective coaching sessions requires a structured approach that leverages insights, encourages motivation, and focuses on the specific needs of each team member. Below are some best practices that sales management can follow to ensure their coaching sessions get the best results:

1. Understand Your Team’s Needs:
Sales managers should begin by identifying the unique strengths and weaknesses of each sales representative. By conducting a thorough analysis and reflecting on past performance, managers can tailor coaching sessions to address the specific challenges that sales reps struggle with, ensuring that each session is impactful.

2. Set Clear Objectives:
Establishing clear, actionable goals is essential for any coaching session. Sales managers should define what success looks like and communicate these objectives effectively to their team. Whether it’s improving close rates, enhancing product knowledge, or mastering objection handling, having a defined goal helps in tracking progress and ensuring accountability.

3. Incorporate Regular Feedback:
Consistent feedback is a key component of successful coaching. Sales managers should provide constructive criticism while also recognizing the achievements of their sales reps. Regular feedback, given during weekly one-on-ones or after team meetings, helps reinforce positive behaviors and correct any areas of concern.

4. Utilize Role-Playing Scenarios:
Role-playing is an excellent way for sales representatives to practice and refine their skills. Sales managers should incorporate role-playing exercises into their coaching sessions to simulate real-world scenarios. This approach not only builds confidence but also helps reps think on their feet and improve their performance during actual sales calls.

5. Foster an Open Communication Environment:
Creating an environment where sales reps feel comfortable discussing their challenges and successes is vital. Sales managers should encourage open-ended questions and active participation during coaching sessions. This open communication fosters trust and allows for a more personalized coaching experience.

6. Leverage Data and Technology:
Sales managers can enhance the effectiveness of their coaching sessions by leveraging data-driven insights from CRM systems and other sales tools. Analyzing sales performance data helps in identifying patterns, tracking progress, and making informed decisions. Additionally, using video recordings of sales calls can be a powerful way to provide targeted feedback.

7. Focus on Long-Term Development:
While addressing immediate performance issues is important, sales managers should also focus on the long-term development of their team members. This includes providing professional development opportunities, offering career guidance, and helping reps build a path toward achieving their career goals.

8. Balance Between Guidance and Autonomy:
A great sales manager knows when to provide guidance and when to allow reps to take ownership of their learning. Striking the right balance between offering direction and encouraging autonomy empowers sales reps to take initiative and develop their problem-solving skills.

9. Track and Measure Progress:
Regularly tracking and measuring the effectiveness of coaching sessions is critical. Sales managers should set key performance indicators (KPIs) and use these metrics to evaluate progress over time. This approach ensures that the coaching process is aligned with the overall sales goals of the organization.

By implementing these sales coaching activities, sales managers can conduct coaching sessions that not only improve individual performance but also contribute to the overall success of the sales organization. Effective coaching sessions are a blend of insight, motivation, and structured guidance, and when done right, they have the power to transform average companies into high-performing sales teams.

9. Sales Coaching Techniques

Sales coaching is a critical part of any effective coaching program, especially in a dynamic sales organization where sales representatives are constantly adapting to new challenges. Here are some essential sales coaching techniques to help your sales reps succeed:

1. One-on-One Coaching for Personalized Development

Personal 121 coaching sessions are an effective way to address the unique needs of individual sales representatives. Often a Sales rep may struggle with specific obstacles in their role, and these tailored sessions allow coaches to provide relevant content and actionable advice. By making personal coaching a top priority, sales coaches can focus on developing core performers, thereby improving overall sales performance and achieving business goals.

2. Implementing an Effective Coaching Program

A structured and effective sales coaching program is essential for ongoing development and quota attainment. According to CSO Insights, a well-implemented coaching process leads to significant improvement in close rates and overall sales performance. By scheduling coaching sessions on a monthly basis and providing ongoing feedback, managers can ensure their teams are consistently making progress. Importantly, these sessions should be seen as opportunities for constructive criticism and praise, helping to motivate and guide reps toward success.

3. Role Play to Prepare for Real-World Scenarios

Of all the sales coaching activities you could implement, Role play is by far the most productive.  Role play is a proven technique that prepares salespeople for real-world interactions with prospects. By practicing different approaches in a controlled environment, the sales rep can build confidence and refine their techniques. This method not only helps reps articulate value propositions more effectively but also enables them to overcome common objections they may face during sales calls.

4. Leveraging Technology for Enhanced Coaching

The use of CRM systems and other sales enablement tools is crucial in modern sales coaching. These technologies provide valuable insights into sales activities, allowing coaches to track performance, identify areas for improvement, and review sales calls for feedback. By integrating technology into your coaching sessions, you can ensure that your coaching is data-driven and tailored to the specific needs of your sales team.

5. Encouraging a Culture of Continuous Learning

Creating an environment that fosters continuous learning is vital for long-term success. Sales coaching should not be a one-time event but rather an ongoing process that aligns with the organization’s goals. By offering professional development opportunities and encouraging self-motivation, sales leaders can ensure that their teams are consistently developing and improving. This culture of continuous learning will ultimately lead to greater job satisfaction and higher retention rates.

6. Aligning Coaching with Business Goals

To maximize the impact of sales coaching, it’s crucial to align coaching activities with the organization’s business objectives. Regularly reviewing progress and setting action plans based on these goals helps create a win-win situation where both the sales reps and the organization achieve their targets. By focusing on these main points during coaching sessions, sales leaders can ensure that their teams are on track to hit their quotas.

7. Fostering Trust and Ownership Among Reps

Effective sales coaching is built on a foundation of trust and ownership. Sales coaches must foster an environment where reps feel supported and accountable for their progress. By involving reps in the decision-making process and encouraging them to take ownership of their development, coaches can empower them to achieve success. This approach not only leads to better results but also helps build stronger, more resilient sales teams.

By implementing these sales coaching techniques, you can create an effective and motivating environment that drives your sales team toward success.

Sales Coaching ROI

10. Coaching your Sales Team in a Structured Way

It’s common for companies to know exactly what kind of training their teams need. However, many sales management teams are unclear about how the training should be structured.

Structure is important because it ensures that the training sticks and is embedded in the organisation. Without any form of structure you will find participants forget up to 98% of what they learn in training.

Experienced training providers and coaches can help you examine your current sales culture and build a training programme that’s specifically tailored to your organisations needs.

A sales training provider can carry out research such as a training needs analysis before training and coaching takes place. Any training and coaching should also be aligned with the companies sales strategy. 

For example, if there is a need from the business to reduce customer churn the training and coaching on this topic might be a priority. 

Training can also be built around new product launches and sales campaigns and wherever possible should be built around your current sales challenges.

Coaching Sales Behaviours
High Performance Sales Coaching

11. Product and Service Training

Buyers have very little time to spend with sales reps and when they do they want to talk to salespeople who understand their industry, their business and their own products and services. 

For any new sales rep this can be a huge challenge as they get up to speed on products and services. 

Buyers expect salespeople to know all the answers to their questions, and their products inside out. including all their features and benefits. While training supports features and benefits, coaching provides the all important bridge between them, and what relevance and value they provide to the customer.   

Sales coaches can help reps gain a deeper, richer understanding of the context and relevance of the  products that they’re selling.  This in turn allows them to emphasise their value when discussing them with customers.

A quality sales coach will encourage your team members to talk about the most important features of your solutions, so your prospects can clearly see how beneficial they are, resulting in more sales success for everyone. 

12. Coaching Sales Managers

Many companies overlook one of the most important elements of any successful sales coaching program, namely the sales manager. 

In most cases a sales manager also fulfils the role of the sales coach and as such has a huge influence on the success of the sales team. 

Coaching sales people will have limited results if the overall coaching program does not include the sales manager. 

Modern sales managers set the bar in terms of productivity and sales performance, so unless they are learning and improving, neither will their  team be.

Most sales managers have neither been trained in sales management, let alone as a sales coach.

Running an effective sales coaching programme is very different from being a great sales person or sales manager. 

13. Virtual Selling

The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns resulted in many traditional field sales reps being taken off the road and working from home. 

Despite most lockdowns having lifted the traditional field sales role has in some cases merged into a hybrid role and in other cases been removed completely. 

Virtual selling is here to stay and for most organisations this represented an immediate need for sales coaching and training to support reps in their changed environments. 

Sales Managers with no training as sales coaches where thrown into the limelight, and overnight were required to be the sales coach. 

In addition to their management duties, overnight they now had strategic coaching, tactical coaching, sales cycle coaching  team motivation, coaching sales calls, coaching underperforming sales reps, one on one meetings, group sessions to keep their team motivated, boost engagement maintain accountability and sales performance. 

All this whilst managing their own performance and continuing to meet the revenue and sales goals and overall sales success of the organisation.  Sales managers need support, they need professional development programs themselves if they are in turn expected to support other team members. 

Remote selling requires a different skill set and different coaching techniques in order to deliver results.  

14. In Conclusion

If you’re interested in providing structured and effective sales coaching program that’s specifically based on your needs, we would love to talk with you. Sales coaching can reverse any negative sales trends, make your team more adept at selling, improve your sales processes and increase morale within your workforce.

By getting your sales leaders on board and involved in the training and coaching process, you can increase the chances of the training being successful.

Sales coaching can also unite sales teams, help you close bigger, better and more lucrative deals, enhance your revenue, help you win new clients, and retain existing ones. Few companies regret their decision to invest in sales coaching.

Klozers has different sales coaching programs available for salespeople, sales managers and business leaders.  We have built our business on our ability to train and coach sales professionals across various industries and love what we do. 

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