1. About the Corporate

• Why was the company formed? What were the early days like? What was the original vision and purpose? What is the vision for the next decade?

• What have been the biggest successes? What have been the key failures? What lessons have been learned from these?

• What mergers/acquisitions have taken place? How have these contributed to customer value?

• Which has been the largest-selling product/service? Which product/service has been most successful in the past couple of years?

• What are the company’s views on sustainability, diversity, and inclusion?

• Where does the workforce operate? How many locations does the company have? How many people work for the company?

• Where are the customers located?

• Yearly milestone journey: Often sales programs communicate key highlights from the entire span of the company’s history. While this is interesting corporate nostalgia, it adds little to a salesperson’s ability to sell. This information can be handed out at the end of a sales training program as reference material to be used when required.

• Corporate structure: Apart from the names of the C-suite executives and the salesperson’s supervisor hierarchy, everything else is “nice to know” when it comes to sales training. Instead of consuming valuable time in an already packed program, this information can be handed out as a job aid to be read later.

2. Product and Service Knowledge

• Origin of the product/service: Often, the true value of a product or service is best understood when the salesperson has knowledge about the reason it came into being. Perhaps there was a specific gap that it set out to fill or a specific opportunity that arose due to market conditions. Experts call this the “why,” and when your salesperson understands the why, they are better positioned to educate the customer.

• Features–Advantages–Benefits: Yes, the good old FAB sheet still has a place in a salesperson’s arsenal.

  • Features – the facts about the product (size, weight, shape, materials used, etc.) or service (scope, timeline, performance metrics, compliance, etc.)
  • Advantages – the advantages the product or service offers (over previous versions, over competitors, etc.)
  • Benefits – the benefits the customer receives from the product or service (better productivity, cost savings, exclusivity, etc.)

• Frequently Asked Questions: Creating an FAQ docket is one of the best ways to increase a salesperson’s ability to face customers. This docket should be written from a customer’s perspective and contain questions from the trivial to the complex, because you never know which of these questions could become the decision-making question. Support each FAQ with a validated response from product experts, and encourage the sales force to continuously update the FAQ docket using data and insights from their meetings with customers.

• Competition: The big one. It is rare these days to encounter a customer who has not done any research into your competition. And if they have not done so yet, they will before they sign your check. Therefore, it is vital that your sales force has updated information about other players and products in the market and understands how your product stacks up against the competition.

• Reviews: Address the elephant in the room; bring up reviews from product rating and social media sites and discuss them. It is prudent to practice this during a training session rather than let an unprepared salesperson be caught off guard by a customer during a meeting.

• Getting too technical: While it is a good idea to bring in a product expert to take questions from your sales force during a training session, it may not work well if you just give them the mic. Product experts tend to be deeply passionate about their product (and rightly so), but sometimes that passion can cloud their judgment about what a salesperson must know and what is nice to know. Be cautious about this and strike the right balance.

• Explaining promotional offers and discounts: This is a training program on the product, not on seasonal promotions. Including conversations about pricing offers can distract the audience from the primary purpose for being there and lead the group down a rabbit hole. Use other channels to inform your sales force about these details.

3. Market Knowledge

• Facts and figures about the market: Sales teams must have facts and figures about the market for the company’s products and services – and about key competitors. Details about buying habits, preferences, successful and unsuccessful marketing campaigns, etc. are all important.

• Challenges and opportunities: Sales teams greatly benefit from knowledge of market conditions. Has a new player emerged, set to cause disruption? Has an established player exited the market? Is this a new market for your company? Has a new law or regulation created greenfield opportunities for your product/service? These pieces of information can boost your sales team’s preparedness.

• Trends and seasonality: There is often seasonality in sales cycles. These trends may be influenced by weather, national and local events, budget allocation, festivals, and celebrations. Salespeople must be aware of these factors in advance and be trained to forecast using historical trends.

• Position and strategy: Salespeople also need to know the positioning of your company and your product/service in their individual markets. In some markets, you may already be an established leader; in others, you may be losing ground; and in others still, you could be a first mover. Each scenario requires a different sales strategy, and your team needs to be trained in each strategy.

• Past successes and failures: You should also include information about market activities that have worked in the past and those that have failed. Information about previous corporate events, sponsorships, roadshows, conferences, and other social events where your product/service has history must be compiled into a job aid that helps your sales team to make quick decisions and wise choices about budget spends.

4. Customer Knowledge

• Who is the customer? Sales teams must be trained to identify the various stakeholders in the customer ecosystem. This training should include strategies and tools, networking skills, social skills, and ethics and compliance policies. Additionally, if the customer is an existing one, then knowledge transfer from previous sales personnel and transaction history must be part of the training.

• What do they consume? Sales teams must know about buying patterns, product mix, seasonality, preferences, etc. Often customers get frustrated when they have to explain the same things to different sales reps. No organization can afford that risk. If your organization has a CRM system, include training about it in your program.

• How does the sale occur? Different customers have different preferences for engaging with your sales team. Salespeople need to be educated on these preferences for each existing customer and taught skills to determine such preferences for new customers.

• Definition of knowledge: The sales force must unambiguously know what aspects of customer knowledge are vital for your organization. This goes a long way toward ensuring that all sales personnel capture a standard set of customer information. They must also be sensitized to data privacy regulations so that they do not inadvertently create a situation that affects your customers and your organization.

• Target market: Salespeople must understand their target market across four dimensions:

  • Demographics: This includes characteristics such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, employment, and income level.
  • Geography: This dimension groups people by where they live, from their country even down to their zip code.
  • Psychographics: This involves dividing the market into segments based on values, beliefs, opinions, social status, lifestyle, etc.
  • Behavior: This dimension divides the market based on spending habits, app and website interaction, brand loyalty, and actions they take during the customer journey.

• Data analytics: Salespeople must be trained in using your company’s analytical tools to help them make informed decisions. Large organizations may have dedicated teams who produce this information. In such cases, sales personnel must be taught how to use that information. In smaller organizations, sales personnel may need to generate this information themselves and will need to be trained to use the correct set of prompts and commands to get what they need.

5. Sales Funnel and Pipeline Management

• Sales funnel stages: Sales teams must be trained to understand the different stages of the sales funnel as defined by your company. This becomes particularly important if your audience has prior experience from other organizations; they will need to give up their previous understanding and adapt to your way of defining the funnel.

• Pipeline stages: Sales teams need training on the set of activities required to move a prospective client along the pipeline. You must also include gate criteria so that there is no ambiguity regarding where a client is in the pipeline.

• Populating the funnel: Your training should cover strategies and techniques to keep each stage of the funnel adequately populated. This is also a good time to identify, through role-plays and other interactions, the individual strengths and weaknesses of your salespeople. This insight will aid your training program and, more importantly, enhance their performance in the market.

• Measurement and ratios: Your sales team needs to know how to assess whether a sales funnel is healthy or weak. Your company will have predefined ratios for each stage of the funnel. For instance, if you start with 100 prospects at Awareness, what is the normal leakage as you work your way down the funnel to Loyalty? Often, your company will have historical data depicting typical ratios for every stage of the sales funnel, and you should include these ratios as part of your sales training program. Here is an example of ratios derived from the earlier representation of the sales funnel.

• Target market: Salespeople must understand their target market across four dimensions:

  • Demographics: This includes characteristics such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, employment, and income level.
  • Geography: This dimension groups people by where they live, from their country even down to their zip code.
  • Psychographics: This involves dividing the market into segments based on values, beliefs, opinions, social status, lifestyle, etc.
  • Behavior: This dimension divides the market based on spending habits, app and website interaction, brand loyalty, and actions they take during the customer journey.

• Data analytics: Salespeople must be trained in using your company’s analytical tools to help them make informed decisions. Large organizations may have dedicated teams who produce this information. In such cases, sales personnel must be taught how to use that information. In smaller organizations, sales personnel may need to generate this information themselves and will need to be trained to use the correct set of prompts and commands to get what they need.