Sales training for beginners should focus on the broad range of general selling skills a new salesperson will need to quickly acquire. In today’s digital noisy, content overloaded and highly competitive environment, trying to persuade a customer or prospect to commit to purchasing is becoming increasingly difficult. So, let’s explore what sales training for beginners should cover. A good place to start is what compelling reasons does a customer need to consider a buying journey.  Sales training must help the new salespeople to adapt and improve their approach to selling.

Any sales training for beginners program should be separated into two different types of sales training. The first sales training program needs to focus on teaching all the basic aspects of sales. The sales training should cover how to sell in the general sense, from identifying prospects, research, cold calling, business development, creating value propositions plus social selling etc. The emphasis should firmly be on the best sales techniques for their industry or customer base in question. The second type of sales training is the company specific training which focuses on imparting knowledge on the target markets, customer profiles, the value propositions for the products or services being sold. It should also include the company’s sales process, what sales tools and resources are available to use in any sales opportunity.

Any salesperson regardless of experience can benefit from sales training or more advanced because mastering how to sell will always be a continuous learning process. In a fast paced, ever changing selling environment, professional salespeople will always want to be exposed to new sales methodologies and new sales technologies so they can sell more effectively.

Sales Training For Beginners Learning Path.  

Understand the sales mindset needed to sell successfully – what it takes to win.

Learning about the Buyers why- what motivates customers to buy.

How to engage customers and prospects to start solving problems.

The activities and actions required to build long term business relationships.

Preparing for a sales call or client visit including value propositions and getting them to listen.

How to uncover customer needs with discovery questions, active listening, and proof.

Learn how to build credibility, value, and trust with customers.

Learn how to sell to the buying committee that have different agendas.

Handing objections and overcoming external or internal obstacles to a sale.

The steps involved in progressing a sale and then closing it.

Understand how your sales habits effect your sales results.  

While the above is not a complete list of what needs to be covered on any sales training courses for beginners, it does give a flavor of the topics and sales skills areas that should be included. The reason to deliver any sales training is to support the salesperson to become more confident, more comfortable, more skilled, and more determined in all their sales activity. The end goal is to help them acquire the sales skills needed to close more sales. 

Sales Training Worth Noting  

The use of Active Listening and Empathy in the sales process because successful salespeople excel at being problem solvers. By practising active listening and empathy, a salesperson can put themselves in the customers shoes to understand their problems, even problems the customer may not be aware of yet. Active listening also gives salespeople the ability to look further ahead. They can say to a customer, “From what you have told me, down the road in maybe a few months from now, you are probably going to encounter challenges in A B and C.  If a salesperson can pinpoint or identify a problem that the customer realizes needs to be actioned (and they believe the solution on offer), the salesperson becomes a valuable and trusted advisor.

They should know who to create both a Value Proposition and a Sales Script. Every salesperson should always know the core elements of what they are selling and why customers should buy it. The value proposition to get a customer to listen and the sales script to engage them further should become second nature.

The ability to quickly overcoming any fear. Salespeople need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, everything they want is on the other side of fear. Learn to accept that rejection is never personal and is part and parcel of selling. Never dwell on the negatives, review the interaction, file it away mentally and then move on from it. Fear is an emotion which can be controlled even if never eliminated, just get comfortable with it.

Sales Training For Beginners Tips

More and more companies are using online courses for sales training to educate salespeople. Access to sales training content on a 24/7 basis will allow any salesperson to constantly refresh their selling skills and knowledge of the sales process wherever they are. Through online videos and modules, salespeople can learn more about the hard sales skills, soft sales skills, social selling, sales prospecting training, business development, closing techniques and lots more. Plus, they can track their progress to ensure they have completed all the necessary modules.

Successful sales training is about constant reinforcement where salespeople can constantly access training material to identify specific gaps in their skills within the sales process. To remind themselves as to what motivates a customer to buy, so they can position what they are selling as the right solution.

We all learn better in bite sized chunks. The great thing about online sales training is that it allows a salesperson to micro-learn at their own pace or when needed. The brain is a work horse, not a store house, none of us can retain a huge amount of information at one time. Avoid the dreaded training curse of MEGO – My Eyes Glaze Over. Keep the sales training sessions short and pace them out so that the salesperson has the time to absorb and test themselves on the knowledge acquired.

Any sales training for beginners should be informative, educational, challenging and Up-to-date with the latest proven sales techniques. Hopefully you will have learnt something from this sales training for beginners guide. The Digital Sales Institute offers you some free sales training if you want to get a feel for some topics.