15 B2B Sales Training Programs

Sales is one of the foundations of every company. It is the way you generate revenue, so the attention you pay to it should not be underestimated. And by attention, we are not just talking about accounting or making projections in terms of profits. The quality of products and services offered is key, yes, but there’s something that you might be missing: how to sell.

Nothing sells itself. It takes a lot of work behind the scenes to initiate and complete each business transaction. The professional training that employees receive is so important because they are the ones who are in charge of selling.

The role of technology, tools and training

It is also necessary to consider that, thanks to the vertiginous advances in technology and its impact on the world’s population, selling is constantly becoming more complex. In other words, the training given to salespeople must be updated, so that they can meet the needs of the potential customers who reach out to the company.

Of course, technological advances also present considerable advantages for business marketers. The use of a CRM such as Callbell, for example, greatly facilitates and improves communication between agents and with customers. They allow he implementation of knowledge acquired in sales training programs that are much more complex than other communication alternatives.

Tag management, scheduled messages and communication between salespeople are just a few examples of Callbell’s features. Your use will depend on your company’s creativity, but you will also be able to communicate with support to receive the guidance you need.

To become a good salesperson, you need to have a good command of tools and skills. To achieve this, it is crucial to manage a series of programs, methods and techniques used to sell. Your company can start training its personnel with the essential guidelines and techniques, among which are these 15:

1) Discovery call

This is basic in marketing, especially when it comes to B2B sales. The formality of a call is imperative when working with another company.

This call needs to be prepared in advance, with a guideline script. It is done having a clear profile of the company, after having made a research and having specified what your company can offer to the other company.

To evaluate your salesperson’s performance, run a simulation and ask him or her to answer the following questions:

a) Did we listen to and understand the client company’s needs?

b) Did the client company show interest in the proposal?

c) Did the conversation seem credible and convincing?

d) Was the person who attended the conversation well informed and able to express the interests of the company he/she represents?

e) What do we have to do after this meeting is over?

2) Technical sales

All products require the seller to have a complete knowledge of what he is selling. However, there are products that have very technical features about a specific niche.

Make sure your salesperson knows exactly what they are offering. Ask them questions as if you were a knowledgeable buyer and see how they do in writing and speaking.

3) Elevator Pitch in 30 sec, 1 min, 3 min, 10 min…

A pitch speech aims to engage the potential client in a period of 45 seconds to 1 minute. It must be clear, concise and engaging. But it is not always possible to schedule an ideal pitch scenario because the conditions are not always met.

A salesperson must be able to adapt to any situation and time, since it will be the customer who sets the tone. Ask him to sell you a product at timed times that you indicate, to verify that it adapts to any situation.

4) Strategic Planning

This planning includes a deep knowledge of the client company. The planner must defend the client’s interests in order to make a successful sale. To achieve this, it is necessary to make a research of the client company and to know which are the competitors that your company has. The goal will be to find an effective form of communication, make a sales strategy and maintain the relationship with the client company.

To find out the level of your salesperson, ask him about a company with which he has handled a sales transaction. He will have to give you all the information you need to make the sale.

5) Pipeline forecasting

This refers to the estimate of sales that the company will have. Expectations have to be realistic in order to make the estimates. There are methodologies to calculate this, or simple intuition of the salesperson. It will never be a precise figure, but it can be a guide if there are salespeople who are more or less accurate.

To see which of your salespeople are closest in their estimates, hold a contest during a sales period. At the end, the one who has made the best approximation is the winner. The idea is that everyone should have the same standard, to speak the “same language” and be able to understand each other.

6) Joint planning

This planning is part of the relationship with the client company. Both parties must have a clear understanding of the steps to be taken during the negotiation and the project.

Verify that both your salesperson and the client company are on the same page, know what has happened, what is happening and what should happen.

7) Review of arrangements

The sales director and the sales teams should meet to review the company’s operations with each client company. The objective is to communicate the details of each operation, to check progress and to know how the relationship between the two companies is going. All parties need to understand how the project is going and make observations or ask for help when appropriate.

8) Storytelling

Storytelling is about telling a moving story about the company, whether it is its vision or its creation. The idea is to move customers’ emotions. This generates closeness and trust.

One way to choose the story to be told is to hold a weekly or monthly meeting in which the salespeople who want to participate act out a story in front of the others. The story that generates the most emotion should be chosen.

9) Research the client company

A salesperson’s research skills are almost as important as his or her persuasion skills. A salesperson must be able to research the basics of a company in a few minutes in order to be able to go into a meeting with little preparation time.

Of course, the ideal is to know the client company in depth, but this is not always possible. The speed to find reliable information and process it will be key.

10) Competitor analysis

It is imperative to have updated information on competing companies; everything changes very fast, so there must be continuous research. A dynamic to train salespeople is to expose their knowledge and let them know how your company differs from the competitors, both in strategies and visions as well as in products.

It is also necessary to know how your company outperforms the competition, in order to detect strengths and expose them to companies that are potential customers.

11) Networking

Networking is key in the world of sales. Not all salespeople make relationships easily, especially those who are not extroverts.

You can exploit those who have this innate ability, but you would be missing out opportunities if you ignore the others. A good way to overcome this is to create a networking strategy that fits the profiles that your salespeople have.

12) Choice of target companies, based on signals

Customer companies give signals to indicate whether or not a sale is viable. A trained salesperson must be able to detect these signals, whether given on purpose or not, in order to decide whether it is worth spending resources on the relationship.

It is all too critical for salespeople to develop good judgment. Doing proper research and having a close network of contacts are ways to understand what the client company is considering.

 13) Sales prospecting

Prospecting is one of the most important skills a salesperson needs to have. The best salespeople know how to get companies that are interested in the products you offer and how to filter them, until they find those with whom they would initiate conversations.

In addition to training on this topic, offer your salespeople the use of technical tools that help them find prospects. These can be social networks, databases, sending emails that avoid spamming, etc.

14) Sales territory planning

Sales territories should be distributed by salesperson or by team. This can refer to a delimitation by region or language, for example, but also by type of customer. The important thing is to delimit with clear criteria.

Make sure that each salesperson is familiar with the territory in which he is working, his progress, how well he is using the tools he has, etc. And, in addition, that they know exactly what their working limits are.

15) Customer ombudsman

This salesperson has the role of supporting the client company with its purchase. He will be the one who influences the decision making process, like a companion. He will also be in charge of solving doubts and problems; he will be the mediator between the two parties, always taking care of the customer’s interests.

This salesperson has to be someone from your company who knows the product he/she is selling and the needs to be solved. This type of sales is more empathetic and the idea is that the client company is the protagonist and not the sale itself. Identify this by observing which of the salespeople is more empathetic and decisive, and who also has a good way of dealing with people.