5 Sales Training Techniques You Must Master
1. Leveraging Emotional AppealÂ
One of the first lessons taught in sales training is the importance emotional appeal. Sales training techniques do, of course, emphasize the use of information and sales techniques, but most marketing techniques are actually designed to emotionally appeal to their intended audience. In fact, one of the main arguments of Edward Bernays (who is the father of modern marketing psychology) was that ordinary consumers were more likely to respond to emotional stimuli than raw information.Â
So in training your personnel to become good sales representatives, it’s important to teach them how to leverage human psychology in order to increase potential sales. To do this, you will need to teach your personnel several important skills, such as:Â
- Â Learning how to use and deliver a great opening speech/spiel
- Â How to keep potential customers interested by using psychological cues
- Â How to make potential customers curious about the product
- Â Projecting a positive image that makes potential clients and customers interested in what they have to say
Notice that none of these suggestions involve talking about the actual product. It’s all about emotion, and this is an important point to remember because even though most human beings want to know about the things that they are buying, many of us also make the decision to buy based on how we feel about a particular product.Â
2. Competitive StrategyÂ
It’s important to remember that sales training techniques do not always focus on the consumers and audience. In many cases, they also involve your organization’s competitors and their share of the market. So in order to effectively compete with rival companies, an organization’s sales executives need to understand how competitive strategy works.Â
In competitive strategy, great emphasis is placed on dominant and dominated strategies. Dominant strategies are described as as those sales or marketing strategies that always win, while dominated strategies are those strategies which always lose. By teaching your sales personnel to detect or identify these kinds of strategies, your organization will be able to do two important things in regards to selling your products.First of all, you will be able to identify which sales strategies are most effective for your company to use, and secondly, which sales strategies are most likely to be used by your competitors. Consider the following example. Let’s say that your organization can increase its sales by 50% by investing $500 in a marketing campaign. On the other hand, your rivals, Organization B, can also increase their sales by 50% if they were to invest in a similar $500 marketing campaign. The only problem, however, is that if both your organization and your rival’s were to carry out a similar $500 marketing campaign simultaneously, then neither companies will get additional sales since their respective marketing campaigns cancel each other out, and on top of that, both organizations also lose $500 in the process.
An effective competitive strategy will teach your personnel how to cope with such a scenario, and help them to make decisions which are in the best interests of your organization. So if your organization has a lot of rivals, teaching your personnel competitive strategies will help them to make better sales-related decisions in the future.Â
3. Social Media and Online Reputation ManagementÂ
There are many ways to increase sales through the internet, but the easiest approach is to simply get noticed by your intended audience. If your potential clients see you online then they are more likely to purchase what you have to sell. This is why Search Engine Optimization is considered such a big deal by organizations that want to increase their online sales and profit margins. They want to be seen.Â
So one of the best sales training techniques that you can teach your personnel is social media marketing and online reputation management. This type of sales technique basically involves posting positive content about your organization’s products and services on social media. You’ll be surprised at how many potential clients your organization can get by posting a few positive posts on Facebook or Twitter.Â
Furthermore, social media and online reputation also helps to contain any negative fallout from your products, like for example, irate customers and negative reviews. So if you want your organization to increase its online sales, you should teach your personnel about social media marketing and online reputation management.Â
4. Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is a term that’s usually associated with the internet, but it can actually be implemented on any type of media platforms. Basically, viral marketing is all about turning your organization’s brand into a meme, an ideas or even a catchy phrases that spreads out organically, without direct interference from your organization. A good example of this is word-of-mouth exposure which relies on people sharing things that they like to people they know.Â
The good thing about viral marketing is that it’s organic, and more importantly, free. By attaching your brand to a viral message, it gets a lot of exposure and attention from your clients, including those who may not even be aware that your organization exists. In other words, creating a viral marketing campaign will allow your organization to more easily sell its products, thanks to its increasing popularity.Â
5. Personality Development
Personality development is basically teaching your personnel how to act around potential clients. Qualities, like being polite, helpful and charismatic, are, of course, important, but additional lessons will also be necessary. Effective sales personnel also know how to detect hesitation and interest in potential clients. They know how to dress up their words to make a good impression. They also know how to keep potential clients from getting bored or frustrated. Teach your personnel these qualities, and they’ll have an easier time selling your organization’s products. After all, sales is not just about selling. It’s also about creating a positive image.Â
Conclusion
Sales is easy on a personal level and difficult on an organization level. So teaching your personnel these sales training techniques will help them to become more effective at their work, and thus sell your products more effectively.