Characteristics Of An Effective Sales Training Platform

By now, you know sales aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. So it is right to say one needs to be a jack of all trades — including logic and creativity in this process. 

You may be genetically equipped to be a deal-maker, but as time goes on, your reservoir may drain out, and you can’t withstand the marketing pressure and changing demand. 

So what you counted as inherent talent turns out to be outdated in front of the evolving market sphere and the new entrants. This ever-changing market atmosphere calls for a constant need for professional growth as a salesperson, and you have a lookout for ways to ace your sales skills over time.

You shouldn’t feel bad about being a beginner or not knowing something. All successful sales managers started from scratch, and the constant learning and unlearning made them soar high. If they could do it, so can you!

You can also integrate an effective virtual sales training platform into your onboarding process to save time during the work process. The ultimate goal should be to prepare what you perform in your business. 

Remember, lack of knowledge can create dysfunctionality within the teams.

When you’re constantly on-to-go, it’s quite normal to fall into the rut of doing the same things repeatedly. It’s never too late or early to get started! 

Take slow but definite progress. 

Build a sales team with a legit sales training plan to equip the members to face better tomorrow.

This blog has got you covered about what you need to know. 

Dive in to unpack the importance of a sales training platform and harness the good benefits for the efficiency of your organization.

First things first –

What’s sales training? 

Sales training is a process by which a company develops the selling skills, enhancing their salesmen's already existing ability, knowledge, and experience.

The salesforce gets professional training from the get-go to hone their performance skills that meet the market standards and correct deficiencies.

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Finding the right virtual sales training platform:

1. The platform that foregrounds team collaboration

When you take your organization, each team has a distinct function when you take your organization, but they don’t work as a separate entity. Departments are cross-functional, implying that what happens to one affects the other. So keeping one team aloof from its counterparts would be the biggest mistake. 

The sales team is highly dependent on being linked with complementary teams. From customer relationship management to gamification, a sales team helps the entire organization significantly. Never underestimate the support you give to the marketing and product team for a 360-degree customer experience and maintain the flow in the organization. 

These are not easy without a sales training program and cloud sales training software that aligns them together to move in the same direction, working hand-in-hand and maintaining the flow and accountability needed to sustain the business.

2. Must have a big content library:

Having a big content library is like owning an asset that banks all the company's content, making it accessible to all departments. In short, the content library is the centralized medium of channelizing the responsibilities and systematically pipelining the tasks. 

The content library within your online sales training should encompass every type of content. For instance, whether it's marketing collateral of present, past, or future - it should be vast enough to include them all.

Record-keeping helps track crucial learnings from past experiences and grants wholesome experience to newbies about what the company is up to in business. 

3. Must synchronize with your sales training program:

The platform should have an external and internal communication space. For example, not every aspect of the business is meant for everyone, and there are certain things seniors of the organizational hierarchy need to know, not the newbies. 

The sales training program should synchronize in a way that doesn’t disrupt or overlap one thing over the other. You don’t have to put everything on virtual mode, especially when you onboard new employees to your sales team. 

Whether it’s an office or any other place, everyone must have access to sales training for brushing up when they feel brain drained. The goal of the virtual learning program should increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization and for all members to self-examine themselves.

4. Should be customizable and provide data analytics:

The market is driven by data essential to sales or any realm of the organization, and every inch of the company runs on data. The sales training plan should be data-driven and set clear goals that allow you to measure key performance indicators (KPY). 

Every business follows particular metrics to measure success, which is completely brand-specific, meaning it’s based on the nature of the business. While choosing the cloud sales training software, go with the tool that caters to your metrics and supports market dynamics. For instance, you need to upgrade your software that keeps up with the ever-changing arena of the marketing world to get the right measure for the KPIs.

5. Put individuals on the spot to keep track of coaching.

With a sales force, you’ll find variation. Every individual will differ from one another. To keep all of them on one page, you have to put a spot on individuals and track the coaching to bring them on par with others. 

No two individuals are similar, neither what they possess (knowledge). You can split the team based on common similarities for training. At a nascent stage, you should be able to track their performance.

6. No end to virtual training

With the pace at which the world is changing, you need a supercharging sales training gamification to cope with daily needs. The traditional work environment doesn’t suffice the requirements of modern needs.

To adapt to the new normals of marketing, you need continuous virtual training like how you meet up on Zoom for discussions. While everything is shifting online, why not sales? 

You should get pro at online salesman. All you need is software that supports your remote capacity as it would in the traditional office, making your content accessible to potential prospects right where they are.

You’ve unlocked the key to hit the jackpot! What’s stopping you from getting the right sales training program? 

Training provides the necessary skill to the salespeople to perform a job better and correct any lacunae in the sales force while executing their job responsibilities.

Reasons why you should reinforce sales training gamification right away -

Gamification has mind-blowing potential to elevate sales training. Sales training isn’t just another training you used to hate during college days. 

Gamification uses game mechanics to generate engagement, promote learning, and motivate performance. With interactive e-learning taking over, you should consider gamified sales training for fun learning. 

Gamification is tested and tried by successful brands and is an extremely effective way to start sales training. How to embed gamification in regular sales training?

🔹 Rewards:

Want to motivate your salespeople after a long haul? Give them badges, points, or power-ups for their rewarding contribution and performance. 

Rewards give them recognition of their efforts and time and reinstate in their mind to do more. Remember, what you do for your team will be paid off!

As you learn or complete your modules, you earn rewards. The basic example of this is how you unlock exclusive badges on Duolingo.

🔹 Promote achievers:

Bright team players deserve a special mention or shout out to have a sense of achievement after completing the course. When you promote achievers during the sales training, others are inspired too. 

During sales training, promote a sense of achievement as it spurs learning. Allot certificates, medals, or a tag on social media to level up their confidence. 

🔹 Provide instant feedback:

Constructive and timely feedback is needed to let them know how they perform and participate in the training. Feedback is the game-changer, and it can break or make a person, especially if it does not include harmony.

Feedback is an integral part of the training process as it aligns learners to the organization's goals, develops skillsets, and promotes productivity. 

🔹 Value storytelling in learning 

The experience of learning can become compelling for anyone if it has a storyline. The stories have strong power to hit the tug of heartstrings, and when adapted to it in training, the ability to stay hooked to the process increase. 

You can create scenarios that boost customer interaction and relationships through a storytelling approach. Narrating a story builds connectivity and evokes emotions of all types.

The storyline's benefit is that it creates a strong sense of engagement and makes the training process relatable.

🔹 Bit by bit:

The ability to grasp is less when you present a chunk of a lesson in one go. You can divide your training into small modules to reduce pressure. 

Your training homework shouldn’t add up to it. Creating small bits of the sales training program helps catch up with the sessions and feel connected. 

🔹Include a healthy competition 

Leaderboards can be a fun way to drive competition among your salespeople regarding gamification. Like a scoreboard, you can see your rank and performance compared to your peers.

Your managers can view your insight and give you feedback or special attention based on your performance. Support like this motivates the salesman in you to improve in the training.

Secrets to successful B2B sales training

No training. No change in action. No results. As simple as that! And this is the sole reason you should take sales training seriously!

These changes take time. You can’t expect action overnight. Learning, practice, and sheer dedication lead to achievement. Here are a few factors that will help you big time -

• Flexibility: In training for the sales team, every person has unique qualities and a pace of learning. Remember, there’s no such thing as “one size fits all.” Make your training experience based on individuals, not the other way around. 

• Be handy: Once the training is over and sellers face the real world, they shouldn’t feel detached from the learnings. The sales training should be a handy job aid when looking out for support.

•  Prepared in advance: Time is crucial in business, and you need seller preps ahead of time to stay at the forefront. As a manager, you have to assess your team’s needs, areas of correction, and highlights before you assign. 
  Your timely feedback gives you a chance to improve and take actionable steps ahead of time. 

• Emphasis on sales training: Training is a must-do for everyone, irrespective of how old or new you are in the business. If something doesn’t work, always be open to adapting to the new changes.
  Reinstating the training gives a new perspective, know-how to survive in the market, must-have skills to feel competitive, and increase efficiency.  

• Mentorship: Every successful business is a result of mentoring. You need guidance to take the business in the right direction, from knowing how to make the right business decisions and signing up for collaboration. Mentoring is a great way to skyrocket your sales and raise your brand value. 

Use these 5 secrets in your regular sales training for guaranteed results. 

Need for remote sales training

Remote sales aren’t a new thing in business, but its need has grown over the past few years. Doing things remotely has become easier than ever as everyone is shifted online. Using various software, teams interact with the users much faster. 

Most sales talk happens over Zoom, Skype, or any other video conferencing tool from any physical location. You may be in any corner of the world, but you seal a deal virtually. That’s how accessible technology has made life easy in the business world. 

There’s no particular tool to have remote selling. You can use the tool that you find comfortable for your team. You can schedule calls on this tool without an in-person meeting and meet the prospects face-to-face.

Importance of remote selling

Pandemic has taught humans that there's more than one way to do things. Before the pandemic,  sales calls were a rare thing on the remote. But lockdowns and the Covid19 just changed the way things are done.

Currently, you see how a pandemic has increased the need for cloud-based operations, where teams can do remote work from any part of the world. Collaboration, discussion, scheduled calls, training, etc. - everything is in digital mode. 

Today's generation has opted for digital-first, which makes buying and selling easier to consider as a factor for growth. The new normal shifts have made training feasible, practical and must deal with cutting-edge competition. 

You can successfully close a deal if you have prior groundwork. Good preparation for virtual sales calls takes you a few steps ahead. 

It can be as simple as enhancing the experience of the meeting and creating valuable outcomes. Remote selling gives unique ways to ace your sales skills with the right technology. 

Managing the sales team virtually - good or bad?

What amount of practice do you put into selling? How much time goes into making the virtual meeting of buyers and sellers impactful? If you find these questions valid, you surely consider virtual management the right way to get started!

So it won’t be unfair to say managing a sales team, and related activities online are good. Hence, the need for virtual sales training and remote sales coaching comes into play.

Here’s why you should think about remote sales:

• There’s no expectation about what technology one must use. 
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• You don’t have to stick to any thumb rule or methodology. 
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• Remote selling reduces the need for in-person interaction, allowing buyers and sellers to meet at their convenience.
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• Remote sales calls reduce travel and money.

Remote sales coaching or online sales training prepares you to be the master of the sales process. Remote selling is no different than selling in person. The mantras for success in sales are:

• Clarity of problem you need to solve.
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• Find potential prospects who are in need of a solution.
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• Guide customers when they face a challenge.
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• Assist stakeholders in understanding how your solution can solve their problems.
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• Use online sales training through the onboarding process.

Except for the tool for interaction, everything else remains the same on virtual sales calls. It’s the core practice and training that makes you a better salesman, and you’re halfway through sealing the deal when you approach with a focused mindset. 

It's your time to take the plunge to get what you want! If you haven't explored the modern sales calling, this blog guarantees that you can still do what is essential for your growth as a sales professional and become a game-changer in your field.

You're one step away from becoming the sales pro you ever wanted!

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