Sales training and coaching tips for your team

If you are looking for some inspiration for your sales team – or for yourself – there is no shortage of resources.

There are many different models to choose from – be it consultative sales or insight sales.

Some of these sales strategies date back to the 1970s.

Others are more recent.

Others are a very subtle hybrid of a number of strategies.

Businesses are always chasing a cutting edge – as a sales training and coaching organisation, we are often asked by clients to present them with the latest model or strategy that will help them grow market share in their sector.

Social selling and account based marketing are relatively new names to help refocus on an age old selling model – relationship building.

Add in technology and the sales landscape becomes an even more complex one.

It’s a natural instinct to want to improve your sales team and their performance but it’s not always a guarantee that what you need is something new – more often than not we have found that in our experience as sales training and coaching organisation is that the problem you are looking at isn’t always the problem that you need to solve.

Make sense?

What our experience as a sales training and coaching business tells us

How often have do we forsake the basics at the expense of some new methodology or some new software that we have been convinced (by a great sales person) is the next great thing?

CRM systems are often positioned as some kind of panacea – chase the data and the spreadsheets and it will tell you everything you need to know? I have always been an advocate of ‘the right kind of activity = results’ but as a sales manager if you are chasing down the sales team based on data only, then it can have a self-defeating effect.

When did the sales basics ever become obsolete or redundant?

All replaced by technology? I don’t think that technology is going to replace us anytime soon but the number of businesses we work with who have become slaves to data over people is a worrying trend.

The No 1 sales training and coaching tip

Keep the main thing, the main thing – and so remember what the main thing is.

People. Buying. From people.

If technology helps you embrace that mentality then great.

If your people are spending more time chasing spreadsheets at the expense of building relationships, following up on meetings, pursuing dormant customers then you have a fundamental flaw in your sales structure and no new methodology is going to help you with that.

Keep the main thing the main thing:
– people buying from people
– productivity
– focus on existing customers
– focus on new business
– increased revenue
– increased marketshare

Where the focus goes the energy flows.

If you want some sales training and coaching advice – before you want to change anything make sure that you have a good grasp on how well your team is delivering on the basics.

Shift Control is a sales training and coaching business, working with businesses, organsiations and individuals across Ireland. For more information on how our sales training and coaching methodologies can add value to your business, please get in touch by emailing info@shift-control.co.uk