The Best 10 Sales Training Practices To Transform Your Business

You can’t just put someone in a sales role and expect them to do well without any guidance.

As a business owner, you have a responsibility to provide adequate training to your salespeople. 

That’s why today we are going to discuss the ten best sales practices that you can use to equip your sales team for success!

#1 Give Them Homework

Sales psychology has been extensively studied and written about both by academic researchers and practitioners with real-life sales experience. 

That’s why the best way to start sales training is to give new salespeople a homework assignment.

Ask them to read these three books:

“Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini

“Influence” is a book about the psychology of persuasion that is widely considered to be essential reading among salespeople.

Robert Cialdini has spent three years undercover at car dealerships, fundraising organizations, and telemarketing firms back in the 1980s.

Placing himself in such environments allowed him to observe how persuasion works in real life when money is at stake.

These experiences served as the basis for “Influence” which was first published back in 1984 and proposed six key principles of influence.

The new and expanded edition, which was published in 2021, is not only more accurate from the scientific perspective but also introduces a new principle of persuasion: unity.

Reading this book will help new salespeople understand the psychology of persuasion which is the basis of all sales techniques.

“The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible” by Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy is best known as a motivational speaker and best-selling personal development author but he was also an incredible salesman.

In this book, Tracy explains:

• How to master your own psychology and the inner game of sales.
• Why people buy and how to leverage the psychology behind it to sell more.
• Various sales strategies and tactics and how to implement them.

Reading this book will help new salespeople understand what it takes to succeed in sales and introduce them to classic sales theory that every salesperson should know.

“To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading, Convincing, and Influencing Others” by Daniel H. Pink

Daniel H. Pink is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including the #1 New York Times bestseller “To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading, Convincing, and Influencing Others”.

In this book, Pink challenges the validity of the sleazy used car salesman stereotype which he believes to be outdated due to everyone having access to the Internet.

He discusses how being transparent has become a necessity from the business perspective, not just the right thing to do from a moral standpoint.

Reading this book will help new salespeople understand how to sell in the digital age and why it’s so important to be honest with potential customers, even if it means losing the sale.

Homework as a Litmus Test

Reading these three books should get new salespeople up to speed with modern sales theory. 

This homework assignment is also valuable as a litmus test: if someone can’t be bothered to read a few books, they probably lack the drive to succeed which is so crucial in sales.

We don’t recommend firing them over this since there are always exceptions to the rule. There are brilliant salespeople who hate reading but that doesn’t prevent them from closing sales left and right!

However, refusal to do a simple homework assignment is something you should take into consideration. Continue observing them as their trial period progresses. Does it make sense to keep investing in this person?

#2 Introduce Your Target Audience

You probably already know your target audience well: who they are, what they are struggling with, and how your products and services can improve their lives.

But new salespeople aren’t as familiar with it as you are. In fact, they probably only have a vague idea of who are your dream customers.

That’s why you should start your sales training by introducing your target audience. You want to share everything that you know about it with the new salespeople. Demographic traits, psychographic traits, in-group jargon, etc. 

Remember: the better salespeople understand your dream customers, the more effective they will be at selling to them!

#3 Provide Product Training

Once you are done with the target audience training, it’s time to move on to product training. Now your new salespeople understand what your dream customers are struggling with. But how can your product help them solve that problem?

Ideally, you should create a mock environment that allows your salespeople to use your product the same way that your customers would use it. You want them to understand your product’s capabilities and limitations.

This will enable them to accurately present it to potential customers, answer frequently asked questions, counter the most common objections, etc.

#4 Explain How to Prioritize Leads

It’s best to establish a lead scoring system for your business and automate the process as much as possible with customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Look at your existing sales data, identify what traits leads that convert into paying customers have in common, and then use those common traits to determine the likelihood of a new lead converting into a paying customer.

Use your CMS software to set up a system where new leads get automatically assigned to salespeople and prioritized based on their lead score with the leads that are the most likely to convert at the top of the list.

Then instruct your salespeople to work their way down the list. 

#5 Provide a Cold Calling Framework

Cold calling is nerve-wracking. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can give new salespeople a cold-calling framework to follow!

Patrick Dang is an international sales trainer who has helped over 70,000 students across 150+ countries improve their sales skills. He recommends this 5-step framework for cold calling:

1. Research. Make sure to do your homework. Does it even make sense to call this person?
2. Building rapport. You have to get the other person to like you if you want them to listen to what you have to say. And that starts with the right tonality, cadence of speech, energy level, etc.
3. Setting the agenda for the call. Explain why you are calling, show them the value that you bring, and give them a reason to stay on the call until the end.
4. Uncovering pains. Ask questions to understand the problem that they are struggling with, see if you can help them solve it, and figure out the best way to position your product so that it would be obvious to them why they should buy it.
5. The next step. Say, if your next step is a discovery call, you can end the cold call by setting it up.

We highly recommend watching this video where Patrick explains this framework in detail and provides an example:

#6 Roleplay the Most Common Cold Call Scenarios

You can help new salespeople prepare for cold calling by organizing cold calling roleplay sessions.

One person should play themselves and follow the cold calling framework you provided earlier and the other person should play the potential customer and act out the most common scenarios.

You should explain those most common scenarios and how to navigate them. Say, the potential customer is already using a competing product. What now? Tell your salespeople what they should do in that situation.

Ideally, you want them to roleplay by actually talking to each other on the phone as opposed to talking face-to-face.

#7 Provide a Discovery Call Framework

You should also give new salespeople a discovery call framework.

Here’s a framework that we recommend:

1. Begin the call with rapport-building small talk.
2. Set the agenda for the call and ask the lead for permission to get started.
3. Reiterate what you have learned from your previous cold call conversation and ask them if you understood their situation correctly.
4. Ask more questions to understand their situation better and see if they could benefit from your product or service. Determine whether they meet the five main lead qualification criteria (need, interest, budget, timing, authority).
5. Explain how your product can help them solve the problem that they are struggling with. Make sure to position it in a way that addresses the pain points that you have uncovered.
6. Preemptively address the most common objections and then answer any questions they might have.
7. End the call by encouraging them to take the next step. That next step will depend on how your sales pipeline is structured. You might be able to close the sale then and there or you may need to schedule another call so that you could do a demo.

In addition to teaching this discovery call framework, make sure to emphasize that your salespeople should prioritize the interests of the potential customer, even if that means losing the sale. 

To put it simply, if your product is not a good match, they should be honest about it. This can help your company avoid refunds, bad reviews, and PR nightmares!

#8 Roleplay the Most Common Discovery Call Scenarios

Ideally, you want new salespeople to roleplay the most common discovery call scenarios using the medium that they are going to use for real discovery calls. Say, if they will be using Zoom, let them roleplay on Zoom. 

#9 Provide One-On-One Mentoring

Once you are done with onboarding new salespeople, you should provide ongoing one-on-one mentoring where you regularly:

• Review their performance.
• Discuss their strengths and weaknesses and give actionable advice that can help them improve.
• Address any concerns they might have.

Your salespeople should always know what’s expected of them, how they are doing, and what they should be focusing on. 

#10 Help Your Salespeople Manage Stress

It’s important to do everything you can to prevent burnout.

Otherwise, you might end up with a revolving door of new salespeople who go through your onboarding process only to quit after a few months. What a waste of resources would that be!

So make sure to create a positive work environment, set challenging but achievable sales quotas, and encourage salespeople to take breaks if they need to calm down after a particularly bad interaction with a potential customer.

Also, watch out for early signs of burnout. If there’s a drop in performance, talk to that salesperson to see what’s going on. Maybe you can help them get back to the right headspace.

After all, it probably makes more sense to support them through whatever it is that they are dealing with than to replace them with someone new that you would then have to train from scratch!

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