Building a strong sales culture in which everyone within an organization, whether they are on the sales team or not, is actively engaged in the processes, will result in stronger sales effectiveness. It’s no surprise that providing sales training to more than just the sales team can greatly benefit a company’s top line growth – and bottom line results.
There are many ways in which sales training can benefit employees in all departments within a company. I’d like to focus on four.
1. Encourage a sales culture throughout your organization.
You can achieve the ultimate goal of happy and enthusiastic customers much more effectively if everyone involved with customer relations understands and is comfortable with a well-communicated sales process. Sales training provides a greater understanding of what makes a customer want to buy—the underlying and psychological reasons people will make during a purchasing decision. Having this knowledge ensures that every process in every department is designed to best serve the customer.
2. Build your own language
In life – we know that a common language means greater efficiency. It’s simple. In an organization – it’s crucial. A company-wide sales training initiative can help everyone learn the language to ensure that they are all working with the same understanding of goals, processes and service standards. Established terminology and standard definitions, that everyone understands, at each stage in the buying and servicing process goes a long way to high efficiency.
3. Foster positive relationships across the organization
It’s common for departments to become isolated from each other, even when they’re working towards a common goal. Delivering sales training to more than just the sales team, will create connections between departments, that will last long after the training is complete. Those not directly engaged in selling will be knowledgeable about the sales process and will better understand the role of sales as solutions providers. At the end of the day, every department is working towards a common purpose, and this enhances a culture of teamwork.
4. Create Alignment Between Departments
Without a doubt, the most important benefit of cross-organizational sales training is that it will help to bridge the gap that often lives between sales and the rest of the organization. Senior leadership should decide together what kind of experience customers should receive when working with your organization. Then, your sales training program should reflect that mindset. This enables Marketing to understand how to build the right messages, and Customer Service to better understand the customers’ needs.
An organization that is well engaged through training, with a common sales process and language – that have learned to communicate and trust each other, will be unified and allow your company to elevate its standard on all customer interactions.
Good luck and good selling.
