Sales and Marketing is a revenue center whereas other primary or secondary business functions are a cost center for a business. One often learns that in theory and realizes that in practice as soon as one steps into a manager’s shoes. As a Sales Manager or a small business owner, it is imperative to invest into an activity that brings new business for the enterprise. A workforce that is well-equipped with enablers like technology, educated with the requisite resources and motivated with relevant incentives is often the key to any business’ successful financial year. Let’s understand why training your sales team or representatives is the best investment you could make in tougher times like these:
1. Brand Image & Loyalty
Sales training is usually conducted after fresh or lateral hiring of sales personnel. It imparts credibility to the organization and employees feel confident as well after gaining value from it. The structured sales stints, field immersions, an amalgamation of classroom & on-the-job training (OJT) helps in accommodating newly inducted representatives. A well trained personnel acquainted with all products or services your brand offers is a prerequisite for high performance. And with an appropriate dose of motivation, it often leads to highly loyal reps for your brand in the market.
2. ACE Orientation Outcomes – Articulation, Communication & Empathy
An orientation program is done in stages with common objectives in mind. This is decided by top management and is crucial to be strategized so as to impart a culture of constant learning and development in your business enterprise.
Some of the key objectives could be:
Impart essential sales skills like finding prospects, sales demo, cold contact and closing
Emphasizing on Customer Experience (CX) at the heart of all product offerings
Comprehensive understanding of product portfolio, markets and sales processes followed
Skill-set to be developed: A good acronym to remember it would be RAPPORT
Resilience, Adaptability, Perseverance, Problem Solving, Optimism, Rational, Trustworthiness
3. Increasing Revenues by Customer Retention
The most fundamental benefit of an investment in upskilling and developing your salesforce is it leads to revenue generation for the business. A skilled and seasoned team of sales reps is often a bliss to have satisfied customers who repeat and admire doing business with your brand. The happy-go-lucky sales rep who maintains relationships, has an amicable presence with your marquee customers would easily go and upsell or cross-sell to them. Any sales training needs to be thought through with clearly defined phases and outcomes to be measured by periodic assessment methods.
4. Fine-Tuned Administrative Skills
Sales is not limited to knowing your jargon and some personnel limit it to meeting targets every month by incessant cold calling to prospects. But it also includes certain administrative tasks and skills that make any sales rep much more efficient at what they do:
Sales reporting – daily, weekly or monthly
Activity log with periodic status updates
Accurate record of conversion rates and closing ratios
Reports wrt defined targets: meeting & exceeding them
Adapting to softwares or tools that help with data management and analysis (CRM, Advanced MS Excel, Tableau etc)
5. Smart Selling via Structured Approach & Best Practices
Sales training must empower sales reps with SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant & Time-bound) for their upcoming assignments. It imbibes a sense of discipline, knowledge of compliance and best approaches followed by experienced team-members delivering best results. At Arslok India, we provide sales consultancy and sales coaching services to our clients who aspire to unlock their full sales potential and achieve better results with us. Come join us and reach out for any queries.
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