Why you should invest in sales training

This podcast explores the necessity and benefits of investing in sales training, focusing on shifting from pushy tactics to client-centric selling. It discusses handling objections, setting realistic expectations, understanding the sales process, and cultivating confidence as key topics for success in sales.

• Emphasising the customer-centric approach in selling 
• The importance of handling objections constructively 
• Setting realistic expectations to reduce pressure in sales 
• Understanding the structured sales process for improvement 
• High percentage of salespeople reluctant to ask for the business 
• Building confidence through effective sales training techniques

Chapters

• 0:13 Benefits of Sales Training Programs
• 8:25 The Power of Sales Training
• 13:55 Overcoming Sales Objections and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

Hello, again, in this podcast, I'm going to answer the question that a lot of people ask, and that is should I invest in sales training programs? And obviously I'm biased because that's what I do and I have the online sales training course. So the answer is yes, and this is my shortest ever podcast no, I'm just joking about that. So why should you invest in training? What are the benefits? Well, something I've spoken about before is that, for a lot of us, when we first go into sales, our experience of selling and what selling is really just relates back to people who've sold to us. And in my opinion and you might disagree, and that's fine, but I find that probably the majority of salespeople I come across are actually quite bad at it, and what I mean by that is simply that they focus on themselves. They focus on trying to get you to say yes, they just want to get the deal over the line, they just want you to sign on the dotted line, give them your credit card, give them your purchase order, whatever it might be, and then they move on to the next person, and that, to me, is not a good way of approaching sales. It's not the way I teach sales, a good way of approaching sales. It's not the way I teach sales, and if that's your experience of it, it's hardly surprising that one of the biggest fears that people have when they move into sales is that they don't want to be that pushy, sleazy salesperson that we all hear about and is something that it's a bit of a caricature, but I think it's a fair comment that a lot of us fear to do that. So how do you not go down that path? Well, the simple answer is don't. So if you're not going down that path, how should you sell? Sorry, if you don't go down that path, how should you be selling? So this is really where good sales training comes in, and I do emphasize that. And how can you tell it's good?

Speaker 1: 2:25

Well, pretty early on, you'll get the idea about where the trainer is coming from, and a really good litmus test is to look at where the emphasis is. Is the emphasis on the training about making the deal, or is the emphasis on the training about how you relate to your clients? Because, for me, the very first thing to think about and I've said this on several podcasts now, and I'm sure I'll keep saying it again, because I think it is absolutely fundamental to good sales is to think about what it is you're actually doing. What is the purpose of you as a salesperson? Is it to sell product for your company, if it's your own, or for your employer, if you work for somebody else, or is it to solve the problem that the client has? Now I've done my share of sales training in my sales career and I have to say that some of it was pretty bad, and the bad ones tend to focus on how you get a deal over the line.

Speaker 1: 3:32

It's all very adversarial. It's all about you know, about overcoming objections. It's almost like you're fighting. It's this struggle with your client to beat them into submission so that they sign on the dotted line and you walk away with an order. And if you think that through, if that's your experience of salespeople, unless you've got no choice, you're hardly likely to go back and buy from them again and also you're hardly likely to recommend them to people that you know, unless you don't like them. Of course, I suppose you could do that, but for most of us, if we're going to refer friends, people we know, to a service, we're going to do that because we're confident that they're going to get a good result, because that experience they have because we've referred them reflects directly onto us.

Speaker 1: 4:23

So why do you need sales training? Well, it's really to develop the I'm going to talk about the skills, but also the mindset, and I don't really like using that phrase. I think it's a bit overused these days. But there you go. But it's just to get that approach that your role when you step into a sales role is to solve your client's problem. And I talk about this a lot. If you've listened to my other podcast, this won't be new. But your role as a salesperson is to solve the client's problem, and I always suggest a salesperson is to solve the client's problem and I always suggest that you just put yourself in the client's shoes.

Speaker 1: 5:00

Whenever you've gone to buy something, you've gone there the chances are not because you really wanted to buy this thing, although there are obviously instances where that's the case. I'm thinking cars, because that's something that I would tend to do, given half chance. But there are other things where we do buy things because we want them, but for most of us, when we're selling, we're selling a product or a service and there are others out there. So why should that client buy from us rather than one of our competitors, and one of the best places to start in answering that question is to just change your approach and make it all about the client. So, first of all, you need to understand the kind of problems that you can solve with whatever it is that you offer. So people don't lay awake at night on the whole wanting to buy your course or whatever it is your product. They lie awake because they've got a problem. They don't know how to figure it, they don't know how to solve it, and that's why we go to people. So understand the pain points and spend time with your client listening to them. Again, this is another advantage of taking this approach of making it about the client, because that way we're much more likely hopefully incredibly likely to sit there and listen to the client explaining what the problem is that they're trying to solve, and the more we do that, the better chance we have of providing a solution that fits. So this is sort of part one, or the first, reason why it's worth investing in good sales training, because you start to develop those skills and you have that change of approach.

Speaker 1: 6:47

Now, obviously, you could take this from this podcast and apply it. There's a little bit. There's a bit more to it than that, but this is definitely a really good starting point. So do think about that with sales training. It needs to be, in my opinion. Have that approach, because it makes life a lot easier for you when you're trying to do sales. So why else should you have sales training? Well, just think about it.

Speaker 1: 7:12

If you're cold calling, for example, what are you looking for as an outcome when you cold call on somebody and this is something I've spoken about before, but I'll say it again and a friend of mine this is a few years ago now, but he had his own business and, um, it was to do with motorcycle parts and he would go into shops that were involved in in selling motorcycle bits and pieces. But his aim when he went in there was to come out with an order, and he was getting nowhere and getting very frustrated, uh, losing a lot of confidence because he was getting knocked back all the time. And so I had a chat to him about it and I said well, the first thing is, let's just lower the expectations here. And how about you make the aim of going in and cold calling? The aim is to get a meeting with that person when they have a little bit of time to just sit down and have a chat about what it is you can do for them. So let's not, you know, go for gold straight away. Let's take it a step at a time, and just by adopting that approach he started having a lot more success.

Speaker 1: 8:25

So another area where sales training can help is to start to give you some structure where you can approach the different aspects of selling, and cold calling is definitely one of them. But you can start approaching those aspects with realistic expectations. And the really good thing about having realistic expectations and in that situation, first of all, it just lowers your stress level going in there, because there's quite a lot of pressure on yourself if you walk into a place and meet somebody you've never met before with the hope of walking out of there with an order, that's quite a lot of pressure, whereas if you go in with the intention of walking out with an appointment just an appointment to come back and talk to them later, that's a lot less stress and it's far easier to negotiate that. You'll come up against less resistance from that person to just have a chat sometime, rather than have them spend money when you've literally just walked through their door and they've no idea who you are. So sales training can start providing structure around different aspects of selling that are not necessarily things that you would think of on your own.

Speaker 1: 9:47

So, look, you might do. Perhaps when you step back and think about it, you might look at that approach in that particular instance and think, well, that's an obvious way of going about it. Why wouldn't anybody? But a lot of people don't, and this is just lack of education, because selling is a specialist activity. It is something that you want training on so that you're doing it properly. If you are going to I don't know make a chest of drawers out of bits of wood and you'd have no training in how to use the tools you well, you know, good luck with that. You might get lucky, but it it makes a lot more sense just to learn a little bit. And if you about it, if you were trying to do something at home and it might have been a bit of DIY or to fix something simple or, you know, in your home or in your car or something like that, if you're anything like me, I just jump on YouTube and look for a video that tells me how to do it, but I don't just dive in and hope for the best. And that, essentially, is what a lot of people do when they approach sales and they don't invest in training. Or they might jump on and grab sort of random YouTube videos, which is another approach, I guess.

Speaker 1: 11:03

But there's a whole sequence to sales. There are reasons why, and we do certain things in the sales process and we do them in a certain way, and we can also measure their effectiveness. And that means that we understand our process. And once you understand the process, you can look at what you're doing well, what isn't going so well, you learn how to measure it and then you know where to place your efforts. And this is how you continually improve the sales process. But if you don't have a process, if it's all very random and you're making it up as you go along, that is not likely to be very successful. So this is another aspect and another reason why you should invest in sales training.

Speaker 1: 11:51

Now, a big one is, in fact, there are two really big ones that I think are very important. The first one is handling objections. This is one area that even people who've had training again I would say not particularly good training, but it's certainly a very common thing among salespeople is that they really fear objections. Certainly a very common thing among salespeople is that they really fear objections. It's almost like they're just kind of trying to do anything to avoid having to deal with an objection and that might be stopping the client talking at all in some cases. I've seen that. So first thing to understand is that objections can actually be very helpful and often what they mean is not that the client or the prospective client doesn't want to buy from you, it's just that they've got a doubt they need reassurance on. So good sales training will first of all give you some insights into what an objection really is and then, when you understand that you know how to handle it, you know what to do next to. I'll use the phrase overcome the objection, but again that sounds a little bit adversarial. It's often an objection there is there because the prospect needs some reassurance on a point, or there's been a miscommunication somewhere, or there's been a miscommunication somewhere. So either you haven't communicated clearly over a certain point or the client hasn't understood what it is that you are trying to tell them. So objections in many ways are things to be welcomed and you won't come across many salespeople, I'm sure, who look at objections that way. So that's one key area in the sales process that is really important that either you, if you're doing sales, or your salespeople, learn to recognize what an objection is really all about, because that is fundamental.

Speaker 1: 13:55

The second thing and I'm going to go back to some stats I found a while back and I think they're probably still reasonable this is for salespeople in the US, but I'm pretty confident they're pretty similar no matter where you go, and that is around 80% of salespeople will not ask for the business, and if you think about it, that's crazy. It's sort of your job. So if they're not asking for the business, how on earth does the conversation go? And what makes that even worse is that in the same survey, I believe the number was around 70% of clients are waiting for the salesperson to ask for the order. So when you look at that, it's absolutely insane. So what is it that stops salespeople from asking for the order? And this may well be something that you're suffering from, and it's actually really common. As I've just said, you know, four fifths of salespeople are not even doing it. So what are they afraid of? Well, they're afraid of an objection, they're afraid of getting a no.

Speaker 1: 15:07

And again, good sales training, first of all, will give you techniques that mean that you can all but eliminate objections so that they don't come up anyway. And there are definite things you can do cover them in the training course that allow you to eliminate objections. You know the chances are you won't even get one, and if you do get one, you'll understand that it's only because something has been miscommunicated or the client is seeking reassurance on this particular point. So they are not things to be feared. Subjections are really helpful and good training will take salespeople through that. They will also give you closing techniques that absolutely minimize the chance of you hitting a no.

Speaker 1: 15:57

And again, there are very, very simple things you can do and they naturally result in a yes to the order. And again, there are things you can do there, as I've said, they're very easy and they're very simple things to do. Finally, sales training teaches you how to handle a no. So if you do get a no again, it's not to be feared, but there are just ways of handling it, and again, they're very, very simple. So so if you're listening to this and you're struggling in those areas, and if anything I've said resonates with you. I absolutely recommend that you get sales training. Obviously, as I said at the start, I have a sales training course of my own which covers off all of these things and gives you simple techniques that allow you to, as I've said, either eliminate or minimize these kind of things happening so getting a no or getting objections and also understanding what you do in that situation.

Speaker 1: 16:59

And I think the most important aspect of this is that once you have that knowledge, once you have these techniques, when you go into a sales meeting, when you're doing a face-to-face meeting with a client, you can go in confident that you can handle really anything that comes up in that meeting and think about what that does to how you interact with that client. When you're with them, how do you come across? You're going to come across as confident. You're going to come across as a safe pair of hands. You're going to come across as someone who knows what they're doing.

Speaker 1: 17:42

And again coming back to the reason why we buy often when we buy something, whatever that product or service is, we're not expert in it. We might know a few things about it, but we're going to the salesperson as an expert. They know much, much more about whatever that product or service is than we do. We know, basically, what we want from it, but in most cases we're looking at the salesperson as being the person who has the expertise. So we're not only buying that product or service from them, but we're buying their expertise. We're buying peace of mind, we're buying from somebody that we feel we can trust and we know is going to deliver, and so we're not lying awake at night worrying about whatever this issue is.

Speaker 1: 18:31

So when you're confident in your own sales ability, how you come across the client is very different to how you come across when you're not confident, if you're frightened of asking for the order, if you're worried about objections, if you're worried about getting a no. So good sales training not only gives you the techniques and the skills that you need to be a good salesperson, to understand what the sales structure is, to understand what the steps are, to understand how to measure each of those steps, how to improve conversion rates from step to step, how to deal with the different aspects of sales and the different things that can come up in a sales conversation. But when you've had that training, your whole demeanor when you're with a client is much, much better and that alone can instantly, when you meet a client, particularly for the first time, instantly increase their confidence in you, just by the way that you talk to them, the way you come across. So if you're coming across as confident, they're going to feel more confident about you. If you're coming across as insecure and worried you know, think about it You're going to wonder what's about you. If you're coming across as insecure and worried you know, think about it You're going to wonder what's going on. You won't know, but you're not really going to be feeling great about entrusting your problems to this person who doesn't seem to be on top of their own game. You know who would go there.

Speaker 1: 20:07

So that, in a nutshell, I guess, is to put some thoughts about why you should be investing in training, in sales training. And yes, it's an investment, yes, it costs you money, but think about what difference that will make to your sales performance, to your business, when those techniques start to pay off. How many sales do you need to make, perhaps that you wouldn't have made for that sales training to pay for itself? And then where do you go from that point? It's all profit. So they're my thoughts. As I've said at the start I'm quite biased, but I genuinely believe in getting good sales training and I believe it pays dividends and it's one of those investments that you'll never regret. So that's it for this podcast. I'll speak to you next time. Bye for now.