The time for professional selling is now

Sales is at the heart of every organisation, therefore, having a sales team that are innovative, adaptable and true representatives of your brand is your biggest advantage. Yet, only  a little over half of employers upskill their employees in customer service, sales and communications.

IMPLEMENT STRATEGIC PLANS
DEVELOP COMMUNICATION SKILLS
HIT TARGETS

How productive is your team?

Is your organisation facing some these common issues?

  • Missed sales opportunities
  • High employee attrition
  • Loosing customers
  • Difficulty in recruiting
  • Employee disengagement

Sales training is a proven way to maximise results and create happier employees.

Sales teams that invest in training and development are
57% more effective
.*

In a function that is paramount for business success, investing in your people is of upmost importance. According to Impartner, 90% of recruitment managers say that finding the right corporate sales professionals has become more challenging, so why not look internally and upskill the individuals that are already within your business? You can boost productivity and revolutionise your sales approach through behaviour, knowledge and skills focused diagnostics, training and support.

What should my team experience through sales training?

Sales training identifies the team’s strengths and areas for improvement, fosters consistency, and focuses your team’s efforts on the outcomes you desire. Successful sales training will encourage feelings of motivation and passion, to achieve sales targets and goals. The true aim of sales training is to assure your team is adopting the right mindset. When this is achieved, the business will see improvements across customer service, productivity, sales, and employee motivation. 

1) Increased levels of confidence across the business

Training will encourage your sales team to feel more confident at every stage of the cycle. A team that is happier, more motivated, and productive will always benefit your organisation. They’ll be more motivated to chase leads, develop closer relationships with clients, and express a passion for their job that your customers will really notice.

2) Adaptable skills

When selling, adaptability is a must be a key characteristic. Your clients are facing new challenges and pains every day – they need partners who can effectively adapt to help solve their pains. 

Successful sales people are able to react and respond appropriately to a situation that may have not been expected, or gone in a way they would like. Sales training that uses stimulations and role plays allow your team to practice their flexibility in a safe and secure environment, preparing them for potential occurrences they may encounter. 

Communication skills are an integral element of a converting a prospect. Your team must understand the importance of effective communication – which is a combination of both words, and physical actions. It also includes demeanour, body language, and emotional intelligence. All of these factors can contribute to the success of a sale. Sales training will prepare your team through by increasing their self awareness.

3) Upskilled and loyal staff

According to a HubSpot report, the average sales team turnover is currently 35% higher than the average for all other industries, which sits at 13%. This statistic indicates how crucial it is that sales teams are loyal to your organisation. Employees often cite lack of development opportunities as a key reason for leaving a role – by underpinning their individual development needs, you are preparing your team for future roles and promotions.

4) Consistency

When teams undergo the same training programme, leaders can rest assured that your customers are receiving consistently high levels of customer service. Post learning, the end result should be greater consistency in selling behaviours across the team. Combined with strategic plans, this will reflect positively on the sales cycle, equalling in faster results.

How will this training improve their productivity?

The dictionary defines productivity as: the quality, state, or fact of being able to generate, create, enhance, or bring forth goods and services.

When relating to sales, productivity is a measurement of how the organisation uses tools, resources and processes to achieve business goals through a reduction of time and costs. When your sales team gain or enhance the skills above, their sales productivity and effectiveness will naturally improve, through developed characteristics.

By knowing all your team’s individual levels of productivity, it allows you to separate the top performers from those who need the extra support – this is where sales training can help. When their sales development journey is incorporated with executive coaching sessions, the whole team’s productivity can be enriched. 

Whilst it might be simple to calculate your team’s productivity through various calculations and metrics to increase it further, we must understand exactly what make teams productive.

The formula of productivity

This formula will help you to distinguish what equals to someone’s overall productivity. Sales effectiveness relates to a salesperson’s ability to complete a specific task, whereas sales efficiency refers to the number of tasks they can do in a given amount of time. Sales effectiveness is also the idea of turning all customer interactions into quality, engaged touch points at all stages of the sales cycle.

Effectiveness is generally about completing a skill correctly. Efficiency is about doing things faster.

Let’s take a real life example of these two theories. Your salesperson’s effectiveness could be determined by how many client meetings they have booked in with prospect leads. Their efficiency is how many they have physically attended within a week. Could they book in, or attend any additionals?

Discovery’s Sales Success Programme

Discovery’s Sales Success Programme will supercharge your sales team in just 12 months, plus up to 4 months for End Point Assessment. The programme meets all the requirements of the apprenticeship standards with an added emphasis on behaviour and change.

The Programme is designed for people who sell as a main part of their role, with responsibilities including: planning their sales activities, leading the end-to-end sales interaction with the customer and managing their sales internally within their organisation. Whether you are new to selling or have experience and need to build upon current skills, the programme will stretch and enhance your approach to selling. 

Who is the programme suitable for?

The programme is designed for people who sell as a main part of their role, with responsibilities including: planning their sales activities, leading the end-to-end sales interaction with the customer and managing their sales internally within their organisation.

In terms of experience, whether delegates need to revisit and sharpen the skills they have accumulated over many years or they’re relatively new to selling, the programme will provide invaluable experiences and insights.

Outcomes of this programme

Our programme covers three core areas; knowledge, skills & behaviour – a crucial blend that all sales people need to balance. Covering these three areas means that delegates will understand how to be more effective, productive & commercially aware across the entire sales cycle; whether it’s qualifying opportunities, overcoming objections, cross-selling or closing the deal.

How can the programme be funded?

The programme can be privately funded by any organisation. Additionally, as the programme is aligned with the Level 4 Sales Executive standard, the programme can be funded using your apprenticeship levy – both for organisations who are levy payers and SMEs using a government top-up.

What is a closed programme?

A closed programme is a way of running the Sales Success programme specifically for your organisation, which allows us to tailor learning and interventions to your business. We recommend cohorts of 10-12 delegates. If you have fewer, it may be more beneficial to enrol your delegates on one of our OPEN Programmes.

What is an OPEN programme?

An OPEN programme is a way of running the Sales Success programme for organisations who have fewer than 10 delegates or want to enrol their delegates alongside others from different businesses.

Enrolling your delegates on an OPEN programme means they will be enrolled on a cohort with delegates from other businesses. This means they will still receive all the benefits of peer learning, and your business will benefit from boosted employee performance for smaller numbers.

Are you ready to improve your workforce?