Why Sales Practice Makes Perfect
Regular sales practice creates top performers who can close more deals. As a leader, it’s your job to set the tone and standards, when it comes to logging sales practice hours. However, getting your team excited and motivated to continually practice and improve their skills can be harder than it looks.
Follow these tactical examples to get your team revved up about practicing, so they can continue to grow and improve their results.
Demo Skills
Why It Matters
Demos are a huge part of the daily sales life. Your sales reps are focused on scheduling demos and closing deals. The best way to improve their close rate is to practice giving great demos.
How To Execute
Provide your reps with the right tools to succeed, and then actually make them work at it. Create specific practice demo scenarios and questions that simulate real client experiences. Then, incorporate practice sessions using screen capture technology. Sales reps will be sharing their screen during live demos, and need to have the skills to navigate your technology systems and troubleshoot when something goes wrong. Products like LearnCore Capture allow reps to easily record and customize their demo presentation, and can also help them watch back their performance to see exactly what their prospect would have experienced.
Handling Objections
Why It Matters
Your sales reps will run into objections at every stage of the sales game. Whether it’s during cold calls, sales pitches, demos, or other client interactions, your reps need to be prepared. Helping your reps practice tackling objections successfully will empower them to win more clients.
How To Execute
Your reps won’t have unlimited time to stop, think, and type out a response in real life, and your training needs to reflect that. Sit down for live role-playing to help your reps practice overcoming sales objections. Ask them tough questions, hit them where they’re least expecting it, and don’t back down. If you don’t have time to sit individual with each of your reps, give them interactive quizzes where they get the question or objective, and then have a limited time to record their response directly afterward.
Sales Pitches
Why It Matters
Your sales reps are always on the clock. Sure they have scheduled sales meeting they can prepare for in advance, but they need to be ready to sell their pitch at any given time. Without a concise and compelling pitch on hand, your reps will miss unplanned opportunities to sell.
How To Execute
Utilize scheduled pitch practices in-person and with forward thinking online technology, like Pitch IQ. Real interactions will help them adjust their pitch on the fly to meet different buyer persona needs, and recorded pitch practice will help them get a realistic idea of their skills. Throw in impromptu practice opportunities by putting them on the spot during meetings, networking opportunities, or something social events.
Sales Messaging
Why It Matters
Understanding your company’s messaging is one of the foundational building blocks for sales success. Being able to convey exactly what your business does, and how it stands apart from competitors is crucial. Without this clear understanding, your sales reps will spread a confusing depiction of your organization throughout the industry, and struggle to close deals.
How To Execute
To start, be sure your sales training materials include standard company details that every sales rep has to learn during onboarding and after any update. Delivering the materials and training on messaging can be easy and consistent when you use an online learning partner to customize different training modules. Afterwards, make sure they actually know it by quizzing them in person, or by using video recorded answer submissions. Review their answers and performance to give them tactical feedback on confusing answers, missed opportunities, and ways to improve. Repeat regularly to make sure retention is strong.
Sales practice is a regular opportunity for you to help your team develop and improve their skills. By focusing on critical areas like demos, objections, pitches, and messaging, you can keep your reps prepped and ready to close more deals.
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