The wrong way to train salespeople
Let Pearl Lemon Sales show what to do with Saas Sales training and what not to do.
Shadow the superstar performer. Most high performing employees are paired up with a new hire at early stage companies. This may work for your star employee, but not exactly for the new hire.
The company also loses control over the sales formula or recipe because they outsource that to the individual contributor. It is possible that your rock star may be distracted by mentoring new employees, resulting in lower revenue.
In addition, a great athlete is not always a great trainer or coach.
Don’t rely on an outside trainer. External trainers also have several drawbacks. The most important thing is to hire new staff the month after the external training, no matter how good it is. Do you plan on returning to the trainer?
The boot camp is two weeks long. The first two weeks of an employee’s employment at many companies are devoted to an in-depth training program covering everything from HR to IT skills.
These internal programs are sometimes necessary, but they cannot ensure full productivity for salespeople in a short period. 79% of what your sales reps learn in your class will be forgotten in 31 days unless they are practiced.
Recruiting sales professionals with experience. In some companies, only experienced hires are used to manage sales onboarding. These employees are not required to undergo further training.
Reps of all experience levels have blind spots. It is also possible that the rep will apply the formula for success from his previous employer to your business, regardless of whether it is (completely) appropriate.
To ensure that your reps understand the company’s sales philosophy, tell them they need to get trained not on sales, but on the company’s sales philosophy. Only then can you be sure everyone knows what the company is about.
The best way to do Saas sales training
For sales training to be effective, you need to:
Tip 1: Focus on one KPI for improvement. If you take one thing away from this, it should be that you shouldn’t train for the sake of training.
An outcome is what motivates you to train. Morale, employee turnover, and hard sales metrics like improving the conversion rate from discovery calls to demo calls are all possible metrics. Choose one each quarter to focus on.
During the learning process, your coach won’t have you try five different things at the same time. A coach may suggest that you “adjust your grip” in order to improve your performance.
Tip 2: Choose a variety of subjects to teach. A spread-out method of introducing new concepts in the classroom. For example, once a week, twice an hour, for six weeks.
Keeping lessons short is important. By combining bite-sized learning modules, different modes of learning (blended learning), and practice, you can more effectively achieve real-world implementation of concepts taught.
Adding peer-to-peer learning is a pro tip 3. Let peers interact freely. During or after sales calls, students could ask each other questions and guide each other. To facilitate this, record the sales call if possible.
Coaching is more effective than training. Flip your classroom by having your managers coach students and provide them with feedback on actual customer interactions while an online learning journey guides students through theory.
Practicing, practicing, practicing. The 70 percent of learning that comes from doing requires continuous practice. Throughout his career, Micheal Phelps has practiced daily and warmed up before every game.
It is recommended that you practice every quarter, every month, weekly, or even every day. Moreover, there should be one-on-one coaching sessions on a quarterly, monthly and weekly basis.
