What Problems Call For Sales Training?

February 20, 2020

Sales management training is one important aspect of sales coaching, and something a good sales coach might be able to offer your company. The difference between sales management training and the coaching of sales reps demonstrates that the aims of sales training are not necessarily always one and the same. While one company might call for only their sales managers and leaders to be coached in an attempt at trickle down improvement, other companies might prefer their entire teams to be trained together. It really depends on the sort of sales problems a company is facing at that moment, and what their goals for the future are

What Problems Call For Sales Training?

So what sort of problems does a sales coach see on a day-to-day basis? What sort of difficulties makes companies turn to a professional sales trainer? If you find that you have similar difficulties, you might take heart that they are the kind of problems that sales coaches exist to fix. Often, sales companies will approach a professional coach for sales training management or sales training when they are heading into uncharted territory. They will also look at entrepreneurial business coaching to drive their business forward. This is a common area sales training coaches face and an issue that the best sales coaches are particularly adept at helping with. Companies heading into new markets, or launching brand new services, will seek the help of a professional who can equip their teams with new sales strategies, built around his or her own experience. In this situation, management training is often also sought, as managers will be just as fresh to this new field as their sales reps. But entering new markets isn’t the only reason that companies might turn to a sales coach. Companies often look for help when they are facing external pressures, or are falling behind. Increasing margin pressure, sometimes caused by production issues or regulatory control, can be responsible for a company turning to sales management training. The company might also be suffering from customer or client retention issues, which lead it to the conclusion that sales training could help. It’s never a good feeling when your company is in dire straits, but the good news is that training in sales management can actually help combat margin pressures, or failing client retention strategies. Often these problems are simply fixed by the competitive edge sales training offers

The Role of Advanced Selling Skills

But sales management training isn’t just appropriate in times of crisis. Rather, it is a must-have. Even when companies are doing well, the smart ones will turn to sales coaching, to give their employees the advanced selling skills needed to stay ahead in the game. Unfortunately, quitting while you are ahead isn’t an option if you want to survive as a competitive company into the future. Sales coaches often work with companies that just want to increase their average deal value, grow their share in key accounts, or increase their win rates in competitive deals. This is where advanced sales skills can come in handy. The majority of work a sales coach does is concentrated on increasing the performance of the middle achieving sales reps in a sales team. Even if a company is doing reasonably well, a sales coach can encourage it to perform even better. Many companies recognise this, and come to sales trainers, directly asking for them to help get their middle performing sales reps to sell more. Of course, there are a great variety of reasons that companies might need sales coaches. Perhaps they are trying to get non-sales people into selling, or are facing challenges keeping their best sales performers. They might demand the effective adoption of a different sales processes, or decide that their prior sales methodologies were not working well enough. There are many, many motivations to find a sales coach, primarily because every company could benefit from one.

Mark Asquith

That British podcast guy, Mark is co-founder of Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast host. A Harvard, TEDx, Podcast Movement and Podfest speaker (amongst many more!), he's a wildly approachable Brit and Star Wars/DC Comics geek.

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