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If you’re responsible for designing or implementing sales training for your organization, you know the effectiveness of training varies greatly.
It might not be implemented properly, land well with participants, be relevant to sellers’ daily work, or it might be forgotten completely in the days and weeks following the training. Sales training fails more often than it succeeds.
But, for those who get it right, the payoffs are substantial.
Most sellers (84%) have participated in sales training workshops or programs, according to a global research study by RAIN Group’s Center for Sales Research. But there’s a marked difference between the training most sellers get compared to top performers:
Seventy-one percent of Top-Performing Sellers rate the sales training they’ve received as extremely or very effective, compared to only 45% for the rest.
Meanwhile, the same research also found the average win rate on proposed sales is 11 percentage points higher for those who receive extremely or very effective training compared to those whose training is less than effective.
Will your sales team be among those who receive the most effective training and achieve the highest win rates on proposed sales?
One of the critical parts of delivering the best sales training is identifying the appropriate sales training topics to cover. You may think your sellers are already skilled in these areas, but we've found massive gaps in the areas that most influence buyers’ purchase decisions and seller effectiveness. Finding the right combination of topics is also essential for onboarding new sellers and getting them up to speed.
Below we highlight 26 sales training topics that may be suitable for your team, depending on existing and desired capabilities.
Relationships are the key to selling and a core capability for all sellers. After all, people want to buy from those they know, like, and trust. Sellers can earn that status by building and maintaining relationships with prospects and buyers, and not focusing exclusively on closing deals.
Sellers can learn how to enhance your rapport-building skills by applying the 4 Principles of Rapport:
Just as important as knowing the actions and behaviors that help build rapport is knowing which will detract from their efforts—for example, interrupting someone who’s speaking, avoiding eye contact, being dismissive of a buyer’s questions, and so on.
Sales training that offers practical rapport-building tips, examples of what not to do, and practice for becoming more likable and connecting with people will help sellers develop this core capability.
Needs discovery is core to any consultative seller’s success, yet only 26% of buyers say sellers lead a thorough needs discovery.
Sellers uncover buyers’ needs so they can determine how they can help. The most successful sellers lead needs discoveries that are both broad and deep—it’s an area where Top Performers are 58% more likely to excel.
As sellers uncover buyer challenges, it’s important not to jump into sharing a solution too soon. Often, a challenge is a symptom of an underlying problem. It’s up to the seller to find out what the real problem is—the root cause.
Using the five whys process of asking questions can help your sellers uncover the root cause of a problem. For example, they might start with one of these:
It may take several “why” questions, with each subsequent question building off the preceding one, to probe deeper and get to the underlying issue.
Sales training on the topic of conducting an effective needs discovery will help sellers craft solutions that are relevant, effective, and deliver true value to the buyer.
Regardless of the business or emotional reasons for why people buy (uncovered during needs discovery), buyers will have personal preferences for how they like to buy. These personal styles occur around how buyers prefer to deal with problems, people, and protocol—these are the 6 buyer personas.
The best sellers tailor their selling based on these preferences. This means they’re able to:
The 6 buyer personas and styles are:
Sales training can help sellers learn to identify their buyers’ preferences, connect with each one, communicate more effectively, and close more deals.
Related: The 6 Buyer Personas (and How to Sell to Them)
Objections can be hard to hear. The key is knowing how to listen to them and respond appropriately.
Essentially, there are four types of buyer objections:
We recommend sellers use a four-step process for responding to objections:
This process works for any objection, but specific responses will vary depending on the objection.
The seller’s response is critical. Some sellers tend to give in right away if a buyer raises any objection. But consultative sales training can help sellers practice responding appropriately to the four types of objections, so they’re better prepared to overcome objections and move sales forward to successful conclusions.
Buyers are often willing to accept the advice of sellers, but only to the extent that they trust those sellers. This is why it’s so important for sellers to build trust in their relationships with buyers.
There are four elements of trust in selling:
Sales training can equip sellers with strategies to help them build trust with key buyers during the selling process and beyond.
It's important for sellers to maximize the buyer’s understanding and perception of value for what they and your company offer. Crafting and delivering a powerful value proposition positioning statement is one way to communicate this to buyers.
Value Proposition Positioning Statement: A compelling, tangible statement of how a company or individual will benefit from buying something specific or buying from your sellers in general.
There are six core components of a value proposition positioning statement. Sellers should use the answers to the questions below to craft a powerful statement.
Related: Learn more with Foundations of Consultative Selling Training
The value and value proposition your sellers deliver to buyers is often confused with the related concept of a value proposition positioning statement or elevator pitch.
Unlike a tangible positioning statement, the value proposition is a broader concept—it's composed of the collection of reasons why a buyer buys.
Value: The monetary worth of something; that is, whether and how much someone will pay for something.
Value Proposition: The collection of reasons why a buyer buys; in essence, factors that affect whether they purchase, and from whom.
Why one buyer buys is different than why another buyer might buy. It’s important that your sellers view their value proposition through the eyes of buyers—their specific situation, needs, and wants.
Then, communicate different components of that value in different ways for different situations.
The collection of reasons why people buy typically fall into three major buckets that, in sum, form the three rules of winning value propositions:
Related: How to Build a Value Proposition in Sales
Sellers have limited time and resources and must make difficult decisions about which sales opportunities get their full attention and which do not.
Yet many sellers will wrap up a sales conversation by setting the next steps and closing the meeting without clarifying or determining what the buying process will be. They skip qualifying the buyer.
This step is crucial. Without it, how will a seller know which opportunities are worth their time?
Knowing the keys to qualifying a sale will help sellers define their pursuit intensity for various opportunities, know when and how to ask buyers about budget, and when not to ask at all.
We recommend sellers use the FAINT definition of a qualified buyer to help them make this determination:
When all conditions of FAINT are met, your sellers have a qualified opportunity.
Related Video: How to Qualify Sales with FAINT
Your sellers' understanding of the decision makers in their sales opportunities and what’s most important to them is essential for sales success.
Corporate buying teams typically include a group of people with influence on the final purchase decision. How they influence the sale depends on their decision roles.
Depending on the buying organization, one person or multiple people could play these roles.
With sales training, sellers can learn how to identify and sell to the five core decision roles of the buying team, complete a thorough stakeholder analysis, and develop strategies for strengthening relationships with buyers.
Related: 5 Decision Roles in Every Sale
When sellers tell stories that take buyers on an emotional journey, buyers are more compelled to act, to buy, and to buy from you.
Following The Convincing Story Framework helps sellers to communicate powerfully with buyers (click here for PDF).
When sellers learn how to share stories in their sales conversations, they’re able to persuade buyers and bring ideas and solutions alive. This can be a more advanced sales training topic, and it's essential for sellers who are trying to change buyer thinking and selling a new product, service, or solution.
Sellers who can build and execute a strategy to win sales opportunities of all sizes—from the everyday to the most important—consistently win more sales.
In fact, the #1 skill compared to all other sales skills studied at Top Performing Sales Organizations is the ability to drive and win sales opportunities.
Taking a strategic approach and using a sales opportunity planner allows sellers to systematically build and implement a plan that focuses on buyers and leads to more wins.
Here are the 6 elements of a sales opportunity plan:
Sales training around this topic, focuses on teaching sellers to use a repeatable process to generate the best ideas and strategies to win sales.
When a seller can quantify the impact of what they’re selling, they can make a stronger business case to buyers—and close more deals. This is an essential sales training topic and an area that almost all sales teams can improve upon.
After a thorough needs discovery, sellers need to communicate the impact their solution will have on the buyer. Many sellers think they know how to do this, but buyers often don’t agree. In fact, while two-thirds of B2B buyers say a clear ROI case influences their likelihood to buy, those same buyers say only 16% of sellers are effective at doing it.
Building a powerful impact and ROI case requires that sellers collaborate with buyers and possess a strong understanding of the impact of their solutions.
Here are five steps your sellers can use to build a strong impact case. Sellers should:
Sales training can help sellers learn to uncover the various factors that determine the impact of their offering. Training also allows sellers to practice building and delivering ROI cases that communicate this impact.
The sales process is an exercise in making a case for change and driving action to make that change a reality.
If buyers think they already know everything about their current situation and what they need to do, they’ll simply look for a solution consistent with that view.
But the best sellers know that if they can reframe the buyer’s view of the situation, they’re more likely to change how the buyer approaches challenges. These sellers are more likely to inspire buyers to take action and more likely to win sales.
The best sellers will:
With sales training on insight selling and advanced consultative selling skills, sellers can learn how to effectively communicate a strong case for change, inspire buyers to act, and differentiate their solutions from others with an exceptionally compelling value case.
Before they make a purchase decision, buyers need to know your sellers understand their needs and believe sellers offer a compelling solution. Unfortunately, the way many sellers present their solution is ineffective. In fact, 80% of buyers say sellers lack presentation skills.
But Top-Performing Sellers are 65% more likely to excel at leading persuasive proposal presentations.
The same Convincing Story Framework shared above provides an effective presentation structure and flow sellers can use to make a convincing case and close more deals.
Here’s how your sellers can use it in their presentations:
Training on these and other sales presentation skills can provide sellers with the tools and experience they need to deliver proposal presentations that wow buyers and lead to more sales won.
Related: Learn to Deliver Persuasive and Compelling Sales Presentations
Collaboration is one of the keys to successful selling. Sellers must be equipped with tools and techniques that help them collaborate with buyers when they meet—both in-person and virtually.
Research shows that, on average, 7 out of 10 buyers are open to collaborating. It’s up to sellers to take advantage of this, yet only 34% of buyers say sellers collaborate effectively.
When sellers don’t collaborate—when their communication is heavily weighted one way—they diminish their opportunities to build relationships, discover and solve needs, and inspire buyers with new ideas.
The core of any collaborative discussion is problem-solving. Without strong structured problem-solving abilities, sellers are often at a loss for how, exactly, to lead the discussion.
By learning to apply the 4 Stages of Structured Problem Solving, however, sellers can lead collaborative discussions and help solve important problems with buyers.
Here are the four stages of leading an effective problem-solving discussion:
This simple framework is an important tool sellers can use to help them master collaborative buyer discussions that will deepen buyer engagement, increase perceived value, and win more sales.
The best sellers are influencers. They drive change and persuade buyers to take action. We’ve identified 11 keys to influence and persuasion that will help sellers resonate most powerfully, differentiate from the competition, build trust, and drive action.
To make the case, sellers must resonate with buyers, differentiate from the alternatives, and substantiate their claims.
Resonate:
Differentiate:
Substantiate:
Once sellers have made the case, it’s time to persuade buyers to take action.
For sellers, the goal is to take buyers down a path of the seller's choosing and help buyers make a decision—one that favors both parties. Part of being an influencer is taking control of the buying process.
Related: The 11 Principles of Influence in Sales
Developing strong relationships in new or existing accounts is critical to sales and account growth success. Top Performers know this—they're 63% more likely than The Rest to build strong, long-term relationships with buyers.
Using a tool like RAIN Group's Relationship Strength Meter allows sellers to gauge how essential they are to buyers and identify how to make relationships stronger and more valuable to buyers.
Of course, building relationships matters whether sellers are selling in-person or virtually. It’s just a bit different.
When meeting in-person, sellers and account leaders often have chance encounters and conversations that help deepen relationships with key stakeholders in their accounts. In a virtual environment, sellers can’t rely on chance.
However, whether virtual or in-person, sellers can take the lead to create encounters and opportunities, both structured and unstructured, that can lead to relationship development and sales wins.
We call this manufacturing serendipity—sellers put themselves in a position to have a conversation with buyers and referral sources that can develop into meaningful business opportunities.
Sales training can help sellers learn to build strong relationships with intention.
When the sales opportunity is significant, sellers need to go all in to win it.
For the most important opportunities, Big Plays are the strategies sellers can use to strengthen relationships, outsell the competition, and win. Big Plays can help:
Big Play strategies are bold, outside the norm, and involve some risk. Think of them as a “partner investment” because buyers tend to view them as an investment in a long-term relationship.
Big Play: A bold, atypical action a seller can take to inspire buyer action and set themselves apart from the competition.
Examples include activities such as conducting an all-expenses-paid executive retreat, facilitating a value discovery or strategy session, developing a beta site for a new offering, and so on.
Sales training can help sellers practice brainstorming ideas for high return Big Plays, as well as learn how to evaluate strategies based on criteria including:
Other Selling Capabilities: Account Management, Negotiating, Productivity, Prospecting, Sales Coaching, Virtual Selling
To be successful with strategic and key account management success, sellers need a process that's systematic, action-oriented, and designed to produce specific outputs.
In our Top Performance in Strategic Account Management research, we found that Top Performers are 80% more likely to have a more mature process for strategic account management. They also have stronger processes to build account plans, discover untapped value, hold teams accountable, and deliver training in strategic account management skills. This results in more sales opportunities and revenue growth.
A flexible five-stage account management process covers the key areas and can be calibrated up or down depending on need.
Training in strategic and key account management that covers this process, as well as other critical areas, will give your team the knowledge, skills, tools, and action plan they need to grow key accounts.
Related: What Is Key Account Management?
Being willing to walk away from a sales negotiation, and knowing when you should walk, gives you something very powerful in a negotiation: control.
It's imperative that your sellers have the skills to identify this point and the ability to walk away if needed.
Gaining a sense of control is critical for sellers’ ability to negotiate a favorable outcome. In fact, the best sales negotiators are 12.5x more likely to be very satisfied with the outcome of their negotiations and 3.1x more likely to achieve target pricing.
And research shows that being willing to walk is the #1 strategy separating Top-Performing Sales Negotiators from The Rest.
Sellers know when to walk away when they know their best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA).
The three-step process to figure out a BATNA is:
Sellers can't stop here, though: they must consider the buyer’s BATNA. They should make an educated guess as to what the buyer's alternative might be based on their knowledge of the situation. Viewing it from the buyer’s perspective can increase the seller's sense of control and confidence in the negotiation.
Next, sellers need to analyze their BATNA and the buyer’s. If the value of the agreement is greater than the value of no agreement for both parties, the seller will move forward. If the value of no agreement is greater for either party, they won’t.
Move Forward
Value of agreement > Value of no agreement to each party
Walk
Value of no agreement > Value of agreement for either party
Sales negotiation training can help sellers determine their best alternative to a negotiated agreement, as well as that of the other party, gain confidence in their negotiating skills, and get the best outcomes from their negotiations.
Sellers should take the lead in negotiations, but most don't according to buyers. Our sales negotiation research found that 66% of sellers let buyers take control. Sellers are then left playing defense and catch up.
The best sales negotiators don’t fall into that trap: they’re 1.7x more likely to be prepared for the negotiation.
Sellers can use a process like the four steps below so they can set the agenda and guide their discussions to the best possible outcomes in sales negotiations.
Sales negotiation training can help sellers use this four-step negotiation process so they take the lead, set the agenda, and guide their sales negotiations to the best possible outcomes
Learn More: Mastering Sales Negotiations Toolkit
Even sellers with a win-win mindset and approach to negotiations need to know how to maneuver the situation when buyers throw curveballs. Sellers need the right negotiation skills to bolster their success.
This means knowing the common negotiation tactics buyers use to throw sellers off their game and understanding how to respond when they encounter any of these tactics.
Here are just six of the common sales negotiation tactics buyers use:
Sales negotiation training can help sellers recognize and effectively respond to buyer objections—including the objections above and many others—in ways that allow sellers to reach the best deals possible for them and their buyers.
Related: 16 Negotiation Tactics Buyers Use (and How to Respond)
Transforming behaviors and habits is key to maximizing sales motivation and productivity. The most successful sellers are motivated, proactive, focused, and goal-oriented.
Indeed, research shows Top Performers are significantly more likely to be highly rated across all nine major productivity areas. They get the most done and achieve the best results in less time.
Prioritizing work effectively leads to making the most of energy and time, and improves action and accountability. By ignoring distractions and keeping focus, sellers and sales managers can work effectively and efficiently.
Using the 9 Habits of Extreme Productivity, sellers and sales managers can adopt habits and hacks that allow them to get more done in the time they have and achieve exceptional increases in productivity and sales results.
Productivity training will help sellers and sales managers maximize motivation for themselves and their teams so they can achieve maximum results.
Download: Unlocking the Productivity Code
The goal of sales prospecting is to create interest and then convert that interest into a sales meeting.
Most sellers know this is a critical first stage in the sales process, but too often they don’t know what steps to take or the best approach to build pipeline. Those that do—the best sales prospectors—set 2.7x more meetings, achieve their sales goals, and have higher win rates.
Here are four steps sellers can take to get started with sales prospecting:
Sales prospecting training equips sellers with the tools, techniques, and repeatable approaches that will help them consistently build strong pipelines.
Related: Sales Prospecting: Tips, Techniques, and Strategies
A key ingredient to building a top-performing sales team is having a strong sales coaching program and sales coaches.
In our research on Top-Performing Sales Organizations we found the sales organizations that get the best results prioritize and maximize the time managers spend on sales coaching, yet 66% of companies don’t believe their sales managers have the skills needed to manage and coach sellers.
Too often, organizations don’t provide the necessary support to ensure their managers are able to deliver effective sales coaching.
In addition to their management-related roles, sales managers need to be skilled at playing five sales coaching-related roles:
With sales coach training, managers can become highly effective sales coaches who help their teams build effective action plans, become highly focused, and execute at the highest level.
Download: How to Build a Sales Coaching Plan
Virtual meetings have become commonplace, making it more important than ever for sellers to be able to manage virtual sales meetings effectively.
Still, sellers face numerous challenges when selling virtually. The #1 virtual selling challenge cited by 91% of sellers surveyed is gaining a buyer’s attention and keeping the buyer engagement virtually. Other virtual selling challenges include:
Buyers, however, expect the sellers they’re meeting with virtually have already mastered the virtual meeting environment. Sellers who haven’t will find themselves at a major disadvantage, especially when their competitors are capable here.
In fact, Top-Performing Sellers are significantly more likely to excel in every virtual selling skill we studied in recent sales skills research. Top Performers are more likely than The Rest to excel at:
Sellers who get virtual selling training to learn how to create buyer engagement, as well as to learn how to lead masterful, thorough, and effective virtual sales conversations, will be positioned to compete in today’s selling environment.
World-class sales organizations create successful sales training by delivering a training curriculum that engages sellers and drives skill development. Identifying the sales training topics that fit your team’s needs is just one piece of the process.
But the topics covered in this article are just the tip of the iceberg. RAIN Group partners with organizations globally to deliver in-person and virtual sales training that drives results and unleashes sales potential. Contact us to start building your custom sales training curriculum. >>
To learn more about how to deliver an effective sales training program in your organization, read these additional resources:
