Sales training: Sales training involves providing education and skill development to the sales team to improve their abilities in various aspects of selling. It focuses on enhancing product knowledge, refining sales techniques, improving communication skills, and staying updated on industry trends. By investing in sales training, organizations ensure that their sales team is equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively engage with customers, address their needs, and close deals. Effective sales training programs focus on continuous education vs a one and done process.

Don't teach style, but do provide a playbook.

Sales coaching: Sales coaching involves one-on-one guidance and support provided to individual salespeople to help them improve their performance. Sales coaches work closely with sales team members to identify areas for improvement, provide feedback, and offer tailored guidance to enhance their selling skills. Sales coaching helps salespeople refine their strategies, overcome challenges, and maximize their potential, ultimately leading to improved sales outcomes.

There is a widely held perception that sales people are born not made in the sense that some people are naturals. They are extroverted, likable, and people just want to say yes to them. I know those natural wunderkinds exist and some absolutely kill it, but I'd argue that good sales people are made through strong training and process. How are sales reps connecting with prospects or establishing rapport? How do they handle and overcome objections? 

Sales can be a very lonely gig, especially if your reps are cold calling. Imagine the constant rejection and then having to constantly going back to the same cold call process. That sounds a little bit like a definition for insanity. A good salesperson needs to have a good, stable mental platform.  Sales coaching can help keep your reps motivated and help them grind it out through the "no's" on their way to that first "yes."

Learning from rejection is also very important.  Not just as an individual, but at a team level reps can support each other going through challenging scenarios.

By incorporating sales training and coaching into a sales strategy, organizations can achieve the following benefits:

• Skill enhancement: Sales training and coaching empower salespeople with the knowledge and skills needed to excel in their roles. This leads to increased confidence, better sales conversations, and improved sales performance.

• Consistency and alignment: By establishing a standardized training program and coaching framework, organizations can ensure that all sales team members are aligned with the sales strategy, follow a consistent sales process, and deliver a cohesive message to customers.

• Continuous improvement: Sales training and coaching create a culture of continuous learning and improvement within the sales team. Regular training sessions and coaching interactions allow salespeople to refine their techniques, adapt to market changes, and stay ahead of competitors.

• Motivation and retention: Providing sales training and coaching demonstrates a commitment to the professional growth and development of the sales team. This fosters motivation, loyalty, and job satisfaction, which can help in retaining top sales talent.

Let's consider a SaaS company establishing an inside sales team that will focus mainly on cold outreach.

• The first step is to make sure the sales team will be able to effectively pitch the product to prospects. The marketing team puts together strong sales enablement material for internal (training) and external (marketing) stakeholders. The product team creates a sales rep training program that covers the features and benefits of the software, the ideal customer profiles, and the customer's buying journey. Sales reps take a quiz at the end to confirm knowledge has been transferred.

• Armed with strong product knowledge, the company decides that now they need to make sure that reps are using effective sales techniques. They don't have resources to invest in a formal training so they use what they know from different sales methodologies to create a simple sales skills program: ask great questions, probe for pain, identify key stakeholders, and build towards next steps or qualify out. The training is reinforced with weekly role playing sessions where reps take turns pitching and pretending to be prospects.

• Reps now know the product and are confident in their outbound skills. The final step is to provide a short training on the company's sales process and then get them on the phones!

• Finally, the company decides that they need someone to manage periodic trainings as well as implement a coaching program. Managers or coaches could observe sales calls to provide feedback, conduct role-plays to practice different scenarios, and set performance goals for each salesperson.

• Books: "The Challenger Sale" by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson and "Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions" by Keith Rosen are all highly recommended reads for sales training and coaching.

• Sales Training Companies: It's estimated that US companies spent $70 billion on training in 2022. So then, you won't be surprised to learn that hiring a training company can be very expensive. Make sure you're doing a proper job vetting any company you hire and estimating your ROI.

• Coaching Tools: Software like Gong and Apollo can record and analyze outreach (calls, emails), providing insights for coaching.