Online Sales Training Courses

Sales figures are the ultimate indicators of any organisation’s performance. At the end of the day, all organisations are sales driven. But, do all of them consider the importance of developing sales talent within the organisation? Everybody will answer ‘Yes’. On further digging, you’ll find, most of the organisations are conducting ‘Product Training’ again and again to their sales employees in the name of ‘Sales Talent Development’. 

The trainings to sales forces are often taken as time consuming activity and dampener to sales productivity. The allegation can’t be ignored especially against classroom trainings. It always remains a challenge for geographically diversified organisations to assemble their multi-location sales employees at a particular sales training venue. The costs shoot up drastically in terms of logistics and training support expenses. It becomes tough for organisations to arrange such sales trainings more than once in a quarter. But is it enough for addressing the sales talent development issues? The answer is ‘No’, ‘A Big No’! 

Sales Courses need to be prescribed from time to time to all the sales employees as per their skill gaps. Sales Skills Development is different from Product Trainings! Sales Skills need to be honed up from time and again as per the latest situations in the market. In this fast changing market environment, a new case study comes up every month; a new objection arises every week. Sales Courses need to be fast paced and dynamic rather than dragging the same old subject.

Original Source: http://goarticles.com/article/Online-Sales-Training-Courses/7985701/

Sales Training Modules for 7 stages of Sales Cycle

A sale is a 7 step process irrespective of product or service categories. These 7 stages are sacrosanct across industries and geographies. All marketing and sales professional have agreed on the complexities involved on each of these 7 stages.

Organisations need to plan out an adequate sales training methodology to support its sales force on each step of this 7 stages cycle for its own success.

The selling skills required for each of these 7 steps vary from one another and requires a deep understanding of the salesman’s ability and consumer behaviour.

The Sales Training catalogue also needs to be designed on the 7 stages requirement format. Mechanisms need to be implemented to mend the gap areas of the sales persons’ skills at each level.

Stage 1:

 Prospecting – It’s basically the hunting stage of ‘Sales Cycle’. It requires customer interaction and meetings. The salesperson needs to hunt profiles that are looking out for a solution for their ‘pain’.

Skills Required: Product Knowledge, Industry knowledge, Market insights.

Recommended Training Program: The art of cold calling, Cold calling Techniques, Telephone etiquettes etc.

Stage 2:

Lead Generation - In this stage, the salesperson needs to identify prospects are willing to share their information and details to fix their need or ‘pain’.

Skills Required: Customer Interaction, Techniques of Need Analysis.

Recommended Training Program: Methods of Need Analysis, Art of Lead Generation.

Stage 3:

Prospect Qualification- In this stage a salesperson needs to assess the prospect against parameters like intent, interest, ability to pay etc.

Skills Required: Listening skills, Assessment Skills, Solution Mapping skills.

Recommended Training Program: Methods of Sales Qualification

Stage 4:

Sales Presentation: In this stage the salesperson needs to communicate his proposals and solutions to the prospect.

Skills Required: Product Knowledge, Competition knowledge, Communication Skills.

Recommended Training Program: Professional Selling Skills Program.

Stage 5:

Objection Handling: Every salesperson needs to go through this unavoidable stage. Queries and objections should be taken positively and to be addressed professionally.

Skills Required: Communication skills, product Knowledge, Evidence sharing skills.

Recommended Training Program: Major Account Penetration Program

Stage 6:

Closing the deal: It is the most important decision making stage. With elimination at every stage, few deals come up to this level.

Skills Required: Negotiation Skills, Communication Skills, Relationship Skills, Product knowledge

Recommended Training Program: Major Account Selling Skills program.

Stage 7

Reference Generation: An effective salesperson should not leave the ‘sales cycle’ at stage 6. He should always try for generating reference from his customers. A reference from existing customer is always appreciated.

Skills Required: Relationship Management Skills, after sales servicing skills.

Recommended Training Program: The techniques of Relationship Management, Up-selling techniques.

In few of the stages ‘Off the Job’ may fit in but in most of the 7 stages, ‘On the Job’ training should bring an ideal outcome. The sales trainer needs to play the role of a ‘mentor’ than a ‘teacher’.

The sales trainer should run the program on the job and need to conduct refresher programs for the weak candidates. The training modules also require several role plays and group activities (part of Off the Job training) before going on for live testing.

Corporate Training and its different methodologies

Employee skill enhancement is a continuous procedure.  Employers put a serious thought in enhancing performances of the employees by focussing on professional development. Corporate trainings are gaining strategic importance in the decision making process. The mode of corporate training is also a key factor for meeting the key development objectives.

Corporate trainings can be broadly classified into On the Job and Off the Job.

Off the Job training is training conducted away from workplace. It’s generally a sort of classroom training which involves lectures, role-plays, case studies, simulation and several group activities. It has its own advantages and disadvantages. 

Advantages

1. It breaks the monotony of the daily work schedule of the employees and helps them to learn with a fresh reflex.
2. Off the Job training is suitable for building concepts and ideas.
3. Away from workplace also builds flexibility within trainees to unlearn their age old methodologies.
4. The trainees’ doubts and questions get clarified in a simulated environment thus minimising the risk of committing mistakes in real workplace.

Disadvantages

1. Off Job Training doesn’t always provide the opportunity to have practical implementations of the learning in real life work environment.
2.  Lack of practice may foil the entire training exercise.
3. Off Job Training cost implications are higher and complex. It requires several intra and
4. Inter- department coordination. 

On the Job Training is conducted in real life work situation. The trainer works as a mentor and guides the trainees with the real life tools, equipments, documents etc. On the Job Training needs a trainer who has practical experience of implementation. Learning is live and mistakes are rectified while going through the task.

Advantages

1. On the Job training uses real life situations. So it helps the trainees to get associated with changes more quickly.
2. Practical testing of the new learning acquired through On the Job makes it more transparent and measurable.
3. Action oriented changes or introduction of new processes can be implemented through On the Job training.

Disadvantages

1. On the Job training takes a longer downloading time.  The trainer can attend few trainees at a time.
2. On the Job training addresses the action but may fail to build ideas and concepts.

Currently the Online training developers are trying to bridge the gap between On the Job and off the job training methods. They are bringing the classroom to the workplace with a simple motto ‘anytime, anywhere’. The trainees are getting trained without losing their productivity and the employers are also glad in saving time and money. Moreover online training with a proper Learning 

Management System can easily integrate with the existing CRM or PMS thus empowering the employers to measure the training impact.  E-training is the new fast growing trend of 21^st century corporate.

E training implementation Strategy

A lack of structured approach in E-training may make it a cumbersome process. This article will try to demystify the essential steps required to smoothen out the process.

1.       Goal setting or Objective setting is the foremost important step to develop a concrete E-Learning Strategy.  Gap analysis is required to get a comprehensive picture of the viability of the project. Gap analysis checks out the present functioning of different parameters against the ideal or planned functioning of those parameters. Top down or Bottoms up approach need to be taken to get a transparent feedback and need analysis from the employees. Top down approach is effective when the management is fully aware of the gaps to be bridged and just want to roll out the project. Bottom up approach is effective at times when the management is not aware of the exact short comings or gaps existing at the executioner’s level. The goals and objectives need to be integrated with the contents and technologies.

2.       Content building according to findings of ‘Need Analysis’ and ‘Goal Setting’ is the next step for E learning implementation. The content needs to be flexible and customized according to the different training needs of the hierarchy. It needs to be figured out how much of the content can be sourced within the organization and how much to be outsourced if required. The content needs to have an inbuilt evaluation mechanism to judge the progress of the trainees. The content needs to be revaluated and modified according to the needs of the hour.

3.       Technology decision will greatly influence the authoring tools that the team uses to create courses. There may be several different processes depending upon the tools chosen, audience’s needs and existing source materials. There are unlimited options for course development. Several methods or a combination of methods can be chosen to achieve the objective.

4.       Financial Analysis (ROI) – The Return on Investment will be the most important factor in determining whether the e-training is really worth of its cost. Integration with Performance Management System or CRM will help in monitoring the change of output of the trained employees. The e-training project requires a gestation lag and it pays off in the long run. It brings down all the logistics and technical expenses and is charged mostly on pay per user basis. 

The above four steps are the basics of e-training implementation. However there are may be plenty complexities to be addressed. It’s often recommended to seek support or advice of professional experienced E-training providers.

How to choose your Ideal Sales Training Course?

In today’s world with intense competition, the marketers are finding it difficult to find out quality training within affordable budget. Selling skills improvement on a regular basis is the key to outshine competitors.

There are plenty of mushrooming ‘trainers’ in the market who claim to provide the best ROI. But unfortunately many of them fail to grasp the complex business cycles and core objectives of their client.

So, what are the definite guides for choosing an ideal training partner?

a)      Objectives on Process change: “Selling is a process. Only when it’s not a process, it’s a problem”. The quality of the process is highly dependent on the level of skills. So before choosing a training program, the marketers need to figure out the ‘changes in process’, they are looking for, through the particular training. The objective of every Sales Training should be directed towards the smoothening out of the Sales process rather than complicating it.

b)      Experience of the Trainers is a reliable parameter. Experienced sales trainers, who have witnessed business of various industries along with effects and counter effects of different ‘Selling Techniques’ can definitely guide a marketer more efficiently.

c)       Flexibility in Approach: The trainers should fit in the requirement of your organisation in terms of content, time and logistics. Customised Sales Training approaches should be always given more preference than on conventional old age methods.

d)      Pricing: Conventional training methodologies are always costlier than SAAS/ Online method. Attrition among the ‘learned’ sales force adds woes to the organisation. Conventional training expenses remain more or less same in case of training the newly joined replaced sales force. SAAS training charges are on per user basis. So people are gradually shifting towards online/SAAS based training for their sales force to reach a vaster geography simultaneously with reduced cost! 

e)      Evaluation of effectiveness: ROI from a Sales Training needs to be transparent. The training module should ideally integrate with your existing ERP/CRM or Performance Management System. This enables the decision makers to identify the learning gaps of Sales persons on individual basis. The impact of Sales training needs to hike the sales figure. Although it may take gestation lag of maximum 2- 3 months but Sales Skills Improvement bound to come.

So, whenever you are thinking of training your Sales people, please evaluate your training partner against the above five parameters. We are definite; it’ll help you in identifying your right Trainer!