Corporate sales training: The secret to taking your team to the next level

A wise person once said, if you think you’ve got nothing left to learn, you haven’t learned a thing. Let’s face it, there’s always room to improve one’s game. Even your sales team. Sales training plays a pivotal role in shaping the success of any sales team. When done well, it equips sales professionals with the required skills and strategies to maneuver difficult sales situations and close deals.

What is corporate sales training?

Corporate sales training is a training designed for sales teams, and typically involves various learning modalities like workshops, coaching, online courses, and on-the-job training. Whether incorporating storytelling into pitches, mastering objection handling, or taking advantage of technology, the goal should always be centered on boosting performance and delivering sales results. Corporate sales training programs should cover topics like:

• Communication
• Persuasion
• Listening
• Relationship-building
• Negotiation
• Strategic thinking

But not all corporate sales training programs are created the same. Let’s get into what makes some approaches stand out, what traps to avoid, and how to make the most of your sales force as you review programs for skill building.

 

 

Don’t confuse corporate sales training with sales enablement training

In essence, corporate sales training is a component of sales enablement. And sales training is a part of sales success. Sales enablement is the broader approach to sales success with specific focus on blending training with other sales-centric tools, content, and strategies. This can take the form of sales enablement pitch decks, presentation systems, or other sales and marketing-aligned efforts to unite a company in its elevator pitch and offerings. It typically supports the entire sales process and enhances a sales team’s performance.

What makes a corporate sales training program good?

Of course there are the obvious factors like cost, duration, and credibility of your sales training provider to consider. But as you think about corporate training for sales, keep these additional characteristics in mind as you consider sales training programs:

1. Personalization

The ability to tailor and customize a corporate sales training to the specific needs and challenges of your sales team is a huge buying factor. While generic approaches may offer strong coverage of the basics, finding a sales training that can personalize its case studies or use-cases for your company’s sales environment will catapult your sellers’ skills.

2. Interactive learning

Interactive workshops, role-playing exercises, and practical simulations are a way to help participants stay engaged and encourage skill application. Too much learning strictly delivered in a lecture-only format may result in a disengaged sales force. And when you’re disengaged, you’re not retaining the training.

3. Practical application

Successful corporate sales training is grounded in reality, with actionable strategies proven to work in the field. Practical tools, models, systems, templates, and frameworks help sales professionals better apply the new learnings.

4. Ongoing support

Learning something once doesn’t mean you’ve actually learned it! Opportunities for additional or continuous coaching, feedback, and reinforcement are critical for creating lasting change. Look for a corporate sales training program that offers ongoing support so your team can continue to improve.

Corporate sales training can come in different formats

Corporate sales training can be delivered in various formats to cater to different learning preferences and operational constraints. Let’s look at a variety of formats:

 

1. In-person/Onsite workshops

Traditional classroom-style training held in physical settings remains a staple in corporate sales training. These types of workshops encourage interactive learning, peer collaboration, and immediate feedback from instructors. Some of the benefits for the participants is that they get to engage in:

• Hands-on activities
• Role-playing exercises
• Group discussions

These in-the-moment tasks help create a fun, practical, and engaging learning environment. And face-to-face interaction is a great way to build camaraderie among salespeople, which can lead to gamification strategies down the line, and of course, knowledge retention.

2. Virtual/Online training

There’s no discounting the fact that virtual training has revolutionized corporate sales training. Having access to training online gives so much more flexibility to today’s modern workforce. Whether your sales team is geo-dispersed, all in-office, hybrid, or if you have smaller numbers of participants to train throughout the year, a virtual training is a great solution for companies with these needs.

Things like online webinars, virtual workshops, and eCourses can replicate the experiences of in-person sessions. And these virtual training platforms are often given by a live instructor still, and they often use interactive features such as chat, polling, and breakout rooms to spark engagement and collaboration. Also, the flexibility of virtual training gives sales professionals access to learning resources from anywhere while accommodating a diverse range of schedules and attention spans.

3. On-demand courses

Self-paced e-learning courses and video tutorials offer the greatest flexibility for sales professionals, especially your top performers. On-demand courses can empower your sellers to access training content at their convenience and work through it at their own pace, which can be extremely attractive for those with challenging schedules.

A huge benefit of these types of courses is they allow sales professionals the ability to revisit course materials as needed. This is great if a quick reinforcement of key concepts before approaching a difficult sales presentation is coming up. Additionally, being able to access on-demand courses across different devices means a more seamless learning experience, increasing learning outcomes and retention rates.

4. Coaching and mentoring

One-on-one coaching sessions and mentorship programs offer personalized support and guidance. These can be tailored to an individual’s needs and development goals, and experienced coaches and mentors can provide:

• Valuable insights
• Actionable feedback
• Practical advice
• Insight into overcoming challenges
• Tips to unlock one’s full potential

Coaching relationships foster a culture of continuous learning and professional growth, and can allow sales professionals the opportunity to keep refining their skills and improve performance.

5. Consultants and external experts

Hiring external consultants or industry experts can inject fresh ideas to your corporate sales training program. With specialized knowledge and the latest best practices, these external partners bring a wealth of experience, insights, and cutting-edge strategies that can complement your own organization’s internal capabilities. Another benefit is that you get the opportunity to collaborate with experts whose job it is to stay current on industry trends, benchmarks, and innovative approaches to sales training. By harnessing the collective wisdom of these third-party stakeholders, you can design and implement rigorous sales training programs for better and tailored results.

Duarte has a variety of sales training opportunities

The landscape of sales training programs is massive! From traditional sales methodologies to cutting-edge techniques, there are a plethora of options to suit varying needs. And Duarte is no different. We have a variety of skill-based training that can be delivered in a variety of formats including in-person, virtual, or on-demand. Here’s an overview of our most relevant offerings for sale professionals and how we can enhance their performance.

Investing in corporate sales training is a necessity for sales teams to drive success in today’s competitive marketplace. From mastering the art of persuasive storytelling to refining presentation delivery skills, our courses cover a range of topics essential for sales success.

Whether you’re looking to build scalable pitch decks, leverage storytelling principles in selling, or enhance Adaptive Listening™ skills, our comprehensive training programs offer a variety of solutions for every sales team.

Train them on presentation delivery

Delivery plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of sales presentations. Our focus on presentation delivery encompasses techniques for engaging audiences, managing nerves, and delivering messages with confidence and impact. Our Captivate™ course blends theory with practical coaching to enhance sales professionals’ speaking prowess and help them gain the confidence and communication skills to influence and engage any audience effectively.

 

 

This training can increase your salespeople’s ability in every speaking setting, from virtual meetings to live sales pitches. At the end of the day, they’ll learn valuable principles to persuade others not just by what they say, but how they say it.

Teach them how to connect and persuade customers

If you’re looking to uncover winning strategies to help sellers better connect to their customers, or to take their persuasion skills to the next level, our workshop Resonate® will help your salespeople do just that – and with your sales pitch deck.

In this training, your sales professionals can bring their sales presentation with them and come out of the training with a transformed mindset to sales pitch decks. Or, if they’re feeling pretty good about their sales presentation template and how to handle a sales pitch in-person – but need to brush up on their virtual selling skills – our Presenting Virtually™ course will do just that.

Equip them on how to win buy-in with data

In today’s data-driven business environment, the ability to effectively present and interpret data is paramount. Our Duarte DataStory® training equips your sales teams with the skills and tools to transform complex data into compelling narratives that drive decision-making. This training teaches your sales teams a research-based methodology for explaining data in a way that moves people to action – which fundamentally is the basis of a sale.

Upskill them with better listening skills

The approach of your sales professionals must remain laser-focused on their customer. Great salespeople get better results because they put their customers’ needs before their own. But needs are shifting. And you need a better way to identify their needs. Customers won’t get what they need unless salespeople can uncover insights first.

Adaptive Listening™ is a goal-oriented way to process and respond in a way that matters to the customer. Learning to adapt the way you listen across the sales process gives sellers more influence over the outcome if they adapt to each customer’s need. The principles of Adaptive Listening™ will help your sales team answer the question, “What does my customer need from me right now?”

Turn your internal training into an effective course

Companies that have homegrown their own training methodology but need to build it out into a more effective format, and with data-backed learning objectives can hire our agency. Let us translate your content into an eloquent and persuasive training experience. Our experts can work closely with you to create the right exercises, craft the most resonant examples, and develop your content into a memorable experience.

How to work with us for your corporate sales training

Don’t settle for generic sales training programs. Whether your sales professionals want to learn from us or learn internally from a training experience we develop for you, Duarte is your partner for corporate sales training solutions. Contact us so we can find the right engagement that works for your sales training objectives.