10 Sales tips to boost your team’s sales

Today's business landscape is only growing more competitive than ever. Effective sales skills are crucial for success. Whether you have a team of seasoned sales professionals or those who are just starting their careers, we’ve got sales tips to elevate your game. From understanding the product or service your company offers to personalizing their sales approach, these tips cover the key strategies to build trust, engage customers, and close deals.

1. Continuously learn and improve

In a fast-paced business landscape, it's essential to stay updated on industry trends, emerging technologies, and sales techniques. Continuous learning and improvement keep your team ahead of the curve and allow them to adapt to changing market dynamics and customer preferences.

Guide your team to seek out opportunities for professional development, such as attending industry conferences, participating in sales training programs, or engaging in online learning platforms. By expanding their knowledge and skill set, they can bring fresh ideas, insights, and approaches to their sales interactions.

Learning and improvement should be an ongoing process. With SC Training (formerly EdApp), your team can embrace a growth mindset that encourages commitment to self-improvement. This mobile learning management system has an extensive Course Library filled with free microlearning programs.

SC Training (formerly EdApp) offers courses on sales management, language, training, and competencies. You can import these courses and share them with your team for free. It’s the most convenient way to train them how to be good at sales.

Sign up to SC Training (formerly EdApp) to help your sales team close more deals.

2. Understand your product or service

To become an effective salesperson, it’s an absolute must to have complete knowledge of the features, benefits, and value proposition of what your company’s offering. Once your team understands your product or service, they can tailor their sales pitch to highlight how it meets the specific needs of their customers. This sales tip allows your team to address any of their customers’ concerns, which gives reassurance and increases their trust.

Knowledge about your product or service also lets your salespeople differentiate it from competitors. By knowing the strengths and advantages of what they're selling, they can position it as a superior solution against competing products. This sets your business apart in the market and gives you a competitive edge.

3. Demonstrate expertise

When you showcase your expertise, you position yourself as a knowledgeable authority in your field. This makes it more likely for customers to value your advice and recommendations.

One way to help your sales team demonstrate expertise is by encouraging them to stay up-to-date with industry trends, market insights, and the latest developments in your field. This sales tip allows your team to offer valuable insights and guidance to customers.

Another way to demonstrate expertise is by sharing relevant case studies, success stories, or testimonials. By demonstrating how your product or service has helped other customers achieve their goals or solve their problems, your sales team can give concrete evidence of your capabilities and value.

4. Highlight benefits, not just features

While features describe the characteristics or functionalities of a product or service, benefits explain how those features bring value and solve problems for your customers. When your sales team focuses on highlighting benefits, they show potential customers the direct impact your offering can have on their lives.

To effectively highlight benefits, ask your team to put themselves in the customer's shoes and consider how your offering can positively impact their lives or business. This requires understanding the customer’s goals, challenges, and motivations. By framing their sales pitch around benefits, your team can create a connection between your offering and the desired outcomes of the customer.

This sales tip allows customers to envision how your product or service can make their lives easier, more efficient, or more enjoyable. By focusing on benefits, your team can tap into the emotional aspect of buying decisions and make a stronger case for why customers should choose your offering.

5. Focus on solutions, not price

Even though the price is an important factor for customers, it's often not the only consideration when making a purchase. This sales strategy emphasizes the value and benefits your product or service brings to customers, rather than solely competing on price. This way, your sales team can offer a compelling reason for customers to choose your product or service, even if it may be priced higher than alternatives.

This important sales skill allows your team to highlight how your offering addresses specific problems, improves efficiency, saves time, or delivers a better overall experience. By shifting the conversation from price to value, your team helps customers see long-term benefits and return on investment.

6. Use storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful sales technique that engages customers on an emotional level and makes your product or service more memorable. Stories paint a picture of how your offering can solve problems, meet desires, or improve customers' lives.

By incorporating narratives and anecdotes into their sales pitch, your team can create a compelling and relatable experience for customers. This sales technique makes their sales message more tangible and believable.

When storytelling, train your team to structure their narrative in a way that captures attention and resonates with your audience. You can suggest for them to start with a relatable scenario or problem that the customer may face, and then introduce your product or service as the solution. Sharing specific details and experiences to add depth and authenticity to their story is also helpful.

7. Offer social proof

Social proof comes in various forms, such as customer testimonials, case studies, online reviews, ratings, or endorsements from industry experts. This evidence serves as validation for the quality and effectiveness of your offering.

By sharing positive experiences and feedback from others who already purchased and benefited from your product or service, your sales team can build trust and credibility with potential buyers. Your team can also actively seek out positive experiences and encourage customers to share their stories and outcomes.

Display these testimonials on your website, in marketing materials, or during sales presentations to showcase the real-life impact your product or service has had on others. Your sales team can also use online review platforms or industry-specific websites to gather and display positive reviews from customers.

8. Overcome objections

Objections arise due to various reasons such as price, features, competition, or timing. Instead of avoiding or dismissing objections,  your salespeople should proactively address them to build trust and move the sales process forward. When faced with an objection, they should listen attentively, empathize with the customer's concerns, and respond with relevant information or solutions that alleviate their doubts.

Another strategy for this sales training method is to help your team anticipate common objections and prepare well-thought-out responses in advance. It also helps them to understand your product or service thoroughly, so they can address objections with confidence and offer accurate information to clear up misconceptions.

9. Personalize sales approach

Instead of using a one-size-fits-all strategy, personalization allows your sales team to create a more meaningful connection and engage customers on a deeper level. By understanding a customer’s unique challenges and preferences, they can adapt their communication style and product recommendations to resonate with the customer. This personalized approach shows that they genuinely care about the customer’s situation.

To increase sales success, let your team gather relevant information about your customers through research, conversations, and interactions. Then, they can use this information to customize their pitch to illustrate how your product can address customer needs.

This will also let your team speak directly to customer challenges and enhance the relevance and effectiveness of their sales efforts. They can also continue to adapt their communication style and follow up based on the preferences of each customer.

10. Collaborate with the rest of the sales team

Sales team collaboration is a sure way to figure out how to be better at sales. This lets your sales tap into a wealth of knowledge, industry insights, and best practices. It allows them to gain a competitive edge by sharing effective strategies, problem-solving techniques, and innovative approaches that can benefit everyone.

Regular team communication and collaboration also facilitate the exchange of valuable feedback and constructive insights. This feedback loop helps them identify areas for improvement, capitalize on their strengths, and continuously enhance their skills.