Why You Need to Think About Professional Sales Training

Salespeople don't learn how to sell by osmosis. That's not how it works. Of course, you don't have to invest in professional sales training for them. You can save yourself some money that way. But if you do, you might see some impressive results. Here's why:

Salespeople are your competitive differentiators.

In today's world, filled with look-alike products and services that can be copied virtually overnight, it's your salespeople who make the difference.

Unless they can provide value to the customer interaction, decision makers will go to the Internet to search for lower-cost alternatives. When that happens, profit margins start eroding fast, as you're forced to drop prices to even compete for their business. However, with a well-trained sales force, the scenario changes.

Let's look at an example–a company that sells promotional products. These items can be ordered dirt cheap on the Web, enabling decision makers to totally bypass the salesperson. Or, decision makers could call around for bids, forcing vendors to offer rock-bottom pricing.

Yet some sellers are doing extraordinarily well, despite these options. They've become an invaluable resource to their customers by:

• Searching out business issues that could be turned around with an incentive program.
• Coming up with ideas to help the company achieve its goals.
• Putting together comprehensive measurable plans demonstrating the business impact.

They provide guidance, making them invaluable and irreplaceable to their customers. Sales reps who've gone through professional sales training programs focused on building consultative relationships outperform product-pushing peddlers who are told by their bosses' to "get out there and sell something."

Turnover is costly

In Making the Number: How to Use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance, a newly released book, authors Greg Alexander, Aaron Bartels and Mike Drapeau point out that turnover in the sales profession has consistently been 40 percent or more. In fact, they state that "an average of 27 percent of salespeople do not produce enough even to cover their loaded employment costs."

Unless your company has really deep pockets, you can't afford this losing proposition. And we haven't even factored in the lost opportunities for net new business or the frustrated customers who transfer their allegiance to another firm where they are better treated.

Untrained salespeople are set up to fail–even if they've learned everything they can about your product or service offering. Many simply have no idea what it takes to launch an effective account entry campaign or how to lead a consultative sales effort.

Working with a professional sales training company, you can implement a replicable process that will guide your salespeople through their entire relationship. Plus, your retention will likely be higher since the salespeople know that you're investing in them.

Changing Market Conditions

The final reason you should consider professional sales training, is that the marketplace is changing. Sales strategies and tactics that used to work are no longer effective. When my own business took a nosedive several years ago, I had to get on the phone again to set up appointments with companies I wanted as clients.

I discovered that it was just about impossible to connect with corporate decision makers. They never answered the phone, rolled all calls to voicemail and rarely called anyone back. My old "tried and true" prospecting message fell on deaf ears.

In order to regain my customer base, I had to leverage an entirely different approach–one that took me more than six months to figure out.

Your salespeople are struggling with the same issues. You can either let each of them try to figure it out themselves–and hope that they do. Or, you can hire a professional sales trainer who can teach them how to get their foot in the door right now so they can start selling.

Hopefully by now, you see the value that sales training can have on your company. Yes, it can be costly. But what you're currently doing in your attempts to save money is actually costing you significantly more money.

As my mother often told me, "That's being penny wise and pound foolish."

Salespeople don't learn how to sell by osmosis. That's not how it works.