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How Sales Training Can Benefit More Than the Sales Team

Having a healthy sales culture means that everyone within an organisation, whether they are on the sales team or not, is actively engaged in the processes and activities that result in increased sales effectiveness. It’s no surprise that providing sales training to more than just the sales team can greatly benefit a company’s sales enablement efforts.

Here are four ways that a sales training initiative can benefit people other than the sales team:

Foster a Company-Wide Sales Culture

In most business models, a sales team is a crucial business development function, so having a sales-centric workforce is critical. Providing sales training to the departments outside of sales allows your entire organisation to become focused on the customers that give your company a purpose, and the buying experience that they receive.

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 common 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.

Get Everyone Speaking the Same Language

A common language means greater efficiency. A company-wide sales training initiative will allow everyone to work from the same page, and that includes having internal conversations with a shared language in place.

Communication is enhanced once everyone is fluent in the selling process, when the dialogue around specific accounts and stages in the buyer’s journey becomes more efficient—both within the sales team and across departments. Congruent terminology and standard definitions of each stage in the buying process reduces miscommunication and unifies the sales and marketing departments.

Bridge 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 teams 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 a collective training enhances a culture of teamwork.

Create Alignment Between Departments

Arguably the most important benefit, training multiple departments with a common sales process will bridge the gap that traditionally exists between sales and the rest of the organization, as well as foster an attitude of collaboration.

Senior leadership should decide together what kind of experience customers should receive when working with your organisation. Then, your sales training program should reflect that mindset.

Customer service can better understand the customer’s needs once they have received sales training, and when marketing understands the sales process, they can provide tools and resources that are aligned with how sales is selling. The promises sales makes to customers should mirror the messages that marketing sends out, and alignment between these departments ensures that’s always happening.

A team that is trained with a common sales process will be unified and better able to communicate with one another, which in turn, will allow your company to clearly communicate your brand messaging to consistently satisfied customers.