The Rapid Way to Create Product Training for Sales Reps

Creating effective product training for sales people is one of the key elements in the entire product development process. You got that right – even the best design, interface, and user experience won’t help unless the product finds its way to the right clientele. A good sales training program for sales representatives doesn’t have to be overwhelming though. With a few sales tips, strategies, and tricks up your sleeve, you can boost the knowledge, sales skills, and confidence of your team.

The right training of sales representatives should contain a few core elements. According to various specialists, those could be summarized into:

• Fluency in product and industry knowledge, product analysis, and value statements
• Constant revision of the customer’s needs and improved communication skills
• Competitor analysis

In this article, we will have a closer look at the essential elements of sales person training and efficient teaching methods geared toward providing the best learning experience. Good sales training about sales techniques and tactics, as well as selling skills, directly translates to customer satisfaction and the company’s visibility, and should never be pushed to the back burner. Similarly, it also helps improves sales through a more efficient and productive selling process.

Leveraging industry knowledge in product training for sales 

One of the major errors entangled in product training for sales is often its tediousness, infrequency, and repetitiveness. In short – your sales reps don’t know what they’re selling and why. Don’t get me wrong, a few types of business meetings pass the excitement check (and it’s not their point), but your sales reps should be at least a bit excited about the product they are going to sell and in the sales process itself. If they’re not, why should their clients be? Training in product knowledge full of dull PowerPoint slides, lengthy sales books, poor copies of product descriptions, and tired sales managers is not exactly the environment to stir up enthusiasm. Here, technology can come to the rescue.

Online learning platforms are a great option for upgrading your sales management training to a new level. SC Training (formerly EdApp), one of the leading online learning platforms, offers a wide variety of already existing learning materials as well as state-of-the-art authoring tools. With SC Training (formerly EdApp), creating courses couldn’t be easier – SCORM compatible and a customizable template library. SC Training (formerly EdApp) is available for all mobile devices, so your team can reach for learning materials any time, any place. SC Training (formerly EdApp) also boasts a feature, namely Gamification, which allows you to turn learning into an interactive game. Checking on your team’s progress has never been easier. With enticing visuals, interactive design, and community functions such as reporting and analytics, the program's a cool way to keep your team in the know of the newest developments in selling techniques and closing techniques to close the sale. Overall, you’ll surely get your ROI from this LMS’ amazing features.

Specialists claim that product, sales, and marketing teams should ideally work in collaboration – while in sales the needs of the prospect are top priority, and product teams rave about all the great features of the product. While both standpoints are necessary to increase sales, a happy marriage between the two is what makes the sale. The product should fulfill the client’s needs, but the client needs to know how and why. Thus, as early as onboarding, sales representatives must balance the knowledge from the two branches. While they need experts on the product they sell and see its unique features, good sales planning also entails skillfully reading the client’s needs, making value statements, and closing deals. Understanding what you’re selling and why is core to sales success and effectiveness.

Customer-focused product training for sales

Much like the constant revision of the product knowledge, it is also necessary to keep track of the changing customer’s needs when prospecting. Whether they are market or society-driven, or simply stem from a shift in the dedicated niche, the product training should involve a conversation, about what current needs the products respond to. Specialized UX departments or independent companies can assess with the use of qualitative tools how the product is used by clients. They monitor what types of problems are being solved by the products, the friendliness of the interface, the design strengths, and weaknesses. With this information at hand, the sales reps can paint an accurate picture of existing and potential clients with their needs, problems, and pitfalls, and gear their strategies towards them. In sales management, learning the connections between different branches of the industry is also helpful because it can show the versatility of the product, the communication between workers, departments, and teams, and in reverse, boost the development and expansion of the product further.

Learning communication skills in product training for sales

Communication skills are probably the most important sales skills of a good salesperson, whether it’s for B2B sales or B2C sales. It’s especially useful for strategic selling, sales presentation pitches, and sales calls, like cold calling. While product training doesn’t focus on them per se, it is vital that they are being used in the training. A good method of communication skills training is a mockup sales meeting, in which participants play the roles of representatives and clients. This way, they can already use their new knowledge about the products, and practice their communication, building rapport, negotiation skills, consultative selling, and spontaneous troubleshooting in client meetings. Role swapping and feedback rounds are also fruitful for the development of professional skills, flexibility, and critical thinking among the sales team members.

Conducting competitor analysis

The last core element of product training for sales is competitor analysis. With the high saturation of the market, awareness of the competitors and their marketing strategies helps to avoid repetitiveness and stagnation in the company’s marketing campaigns. The sales campaign is as good as it is innovative and as much as it answers the client’s needs. Therefore, understanding what the competition is doing and how to do it better is crucial to staying on top of your sales. The market and competitor research is a backbone of the product training and the design of the training should very much lie on it. Comparison of the competitive products and companies should be communicated to the reps so that they are aware, of where the product is located. The best way to ensure that your reps have the information they need is to give them a set of competitor analysis tools. This should include a list of competitors, their products, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Designing effective product training for sales representatives is not easy. However, modern technologies make it a bit more approachable – and a lot more enticing. With the use of learning management systems such as SC Training (formerly EdApp), your team will be kept up to date with the newest development in the product and sales campaigns. With the help of microlearning and mobile learning, they will be able to refresh their knowledge and expertise, help their peers and achieve their career and sales goals with less fuss and more fun.

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