The concept of formal sales training has been around for a long time. There are so many sales training books at the bookstore that it can make your head spin. On YouTube and LinkedIn, there are thousands of ‘how to sell’ tutorials available for free. Undergraduate sales degrees are offered by roughly 1000 universities.
Most sales training programs and materials focus on the foundations of sales, such as how to prepare for sales calls, ask open-ended questions, resolve concerns, and obtain commitment. We feel that, given the wealth of information accessible on sales basics, you should hire people who are already familiar with them.
When it comes to further sales training for their existing sellers to close sales gaps, most organizations stick to the basics. When seasoned salespeople are given basic sales training, the results are typically disappointing. Frustrated sales leaders will bring in a different vendor for extra fundamentals (likely just packaged differently or using new acronyms).
Are the fundamentals of selling important? Yes!
Is it necessary to go through them again? Certainly.
Is it necessary for them to be mentored? Without a doubt.
Should you spend money on sales training that isn’t tailored to your industry? No, we do not think so.
Why? It’s a waste of time and money that yields poor outcomes. Hire salespeople that understand the foundations of the business. Allow sales enablement to be used by front-line sales managers to improve their sales talents.
As a result, the notion of ‘power sales training’ was born. We specialize in it at Pearl Lemon Sales, and our power sales training sessions, which are bespoke solutions tailored to each customer, genuinely work (and we have the testimonials to prove it.)
Power sales training resembles power training in other sports, music, and medicine. Take the sport of football, for example. Starting in the 5-year-old leagues, players learn the fundamentals of football, including positions, ball handling, strategy, and basic runs. These fundamental skills, though, aren’t nearly enough to earn a spot in the starting lineup on Sundays (or even Friday nights).
To master football, you’ll need strong basic skills to deal with all the game’s complexities. The fundamentals should never be forgotten by players, and they should be reaffirmed on a regular basis. Top athletes, on the other hand, combine those foundational skills with higher-level abilities to execute the proper play at the appropriate time.
In football, the pros use a number of coached strategies to succeed in a range of game situations. Their power training focuses on combining a variety of abilities and tactics that are relevant to the realities of the game.
Power sales training is remarkably similar. The power sales training at Pearl Lemon Sales is based on a combination of four sales effectiveness elements:
The idea is to combine these elements with context.
Sales fundamentals are usually taught in a vacuum. For example, many sales training programs are solely focused on product knowledge. They might also simply educate on how to ask smart questions and repeat value claims. To return to the football analogy, memorizing a receiver route from the playbook isn’t enough. What matters is that you practice running that pass in the right game setting. In power sales, the same is true.
To understand what is required for a successful client connection, power selling starts with context and works backwards. The context should be a specific selling situation – the parts of a deal or customer interaction that salespeople need to think about.
The greater the value you supply to the salesperson, the more specific your context is. Teaching salespeople how to conduct a discovery meeting with a CFO, for example, isn’t enough. Your power sales training should offer more context for the buyer’s position. The goal is to create a realistic scenario. Take into account the following:
For the seller, what is the aim of the meeting? In today’s world, sales professionals can’t just ramble on in a discovery meeting without presenting their point of view. The meeting may be useful to the seller, but if it does not take place, it will be a pointless exercise for the buyer.
If you think this sounds like a role play, you’re correct. Sophisticated selling, on the other hand, includes a lot more. Power sales training teaches sellers how to deploy a winning combination of messaging, action, and substance. Power sales training focuses on common selling scenarios, teaches the critical skills, and coaches effective execution.
It’s impossible to overestimate the value of context-based sales training. You’re not just showing people how to run a football play. You’re rehearsing how to run the play when it’s 3 and 6, you’re in the red zone, the defense is blitzing out of their nickel personnel package, and the crowd noise is deafening.
Power sales training, if done right, will enable your sales representatives to recognize, pivot, and play. It will transform ordinary salespeople into selling superstars.
When compared to standard sales training, power sales training does sound “tough.” Can a team of Pee-Wee all-stars, however, win in today’s market? Or do you want to be in control of a team of high-performing athletes?
In the most complicated sales deals, no single piece of knowledge, skill, communication, or substance is sufficient. Combining these parts and executing them at the right time creates value for the customer and gets the deal sealed.
Even if this is something that your most seasoned, top-performing sales reps do on a daily basis, the goal is to develop a training system for the entire sales force. Power sales training is at the heart of your game-winning system.
Contact us to learn more about how you can leverage our knowledge and skills to design your own system using power sales training.
Our power sales training program will quickly get your salespeople game-ready, resulting in bigger wins for them, bigger wins for the team, and eventually a significant increase in your company’s bottom line.
If you have any questions, please do get in touch with us! If you’d prefer to speak directly to a consultant, book a call!