We all know the importance of sales training. It improves sales skills, integrates best practices, and increases revenue. Yet 50% of sales executives say that training is a waste of time, because training covers areas they already know or that it isn't specific to their industry.
Let’s face it, we can make it better and we need to make it better. One of the most exciting trends in medicine today is precision medicine. Precision medicine is a medical model that proposes the customization of healthcare, with medical decisions, treatments, practices, or products being tailored to a subgroup of patients, instead of a one‐drug‐fits‐all model.
For years we have treated sales training like the one-drug-fits-all model. Training typically covered specific sales skills that sales executives were struggling with, however, two important pieces have been left out are:
Direct feedback from buyers about why they are winning and losing.
Industry experience and trends.
Too many leaders neglect the importance of integrating feedback from their buyer into their sales training. Buyer feedback when used in a formal win loss program has the potential to boost your win rates by up to 50%. Many companies rely on their sales force automation (SFA) tool to determine the top reasons for winning and losing. Sadly, the SFA delivers only about 45% of what happened in the deal and the information is biased because it is filtered through the sales executive. While using internal sales data is better than nothing, an independent service organization (ISO) is typically able to gather twice as much intelligence of what happened during a sales process. When this information is integrated into the sales training, you will see your win rates jump.
In addition, sales training that includes industry insights will greatly improve your team's experience. They will hone their skills and develop their call strategies using relevant industry information. Training becomes much more useful and valuable than the generic training most are accustomed to.
It is time to level up with greater precision in your sales training. Given the current market conditions, now is the perfect time to retool your sales training with the objective of making your sales team more effective.
If you’re interested in learning how SOLVE Research’s Precision™ Sales Training can help integrate buyer feedback and industry specifics into your training program, please contact Erik SOLVE Research at erik@solvescores.com or call 801-633-6465