The best 8 sales training programs for sales reps
In an earlier blog post, we covered the best sales training programs for sales managers and explained the reasons why sales leaders need to continuously improve their skills.
But the truth is…
No matter how talented or professional a sales manager is, they’re nothing without the skill sets of their team members.
After all, it’s the sales reps who directly impact the company’s bottom line. They prospect, they reach out, they negotiate, and they close deals.
In this article, we’ve put together a list of the best digital sales training programs for sales reps to help polish key skills from prospecting to account management.
Core Sessions by Flip the Script
Although the majority of sales training programs come at a price, it doesn't mean that you must spend a small fortune on your training. There are also amazing courses available to sales reps completely free of charge.
Core Sessions by Flip the Script is one of such free resources that can easily compete with paid training programs.
Core Sessions is made up of six videos that focus on the different aspects of sales…
- Cold Emails: And How to Write Them In a Way That Compels Your Prospect to Take a Meeting
- Cold Calls: And How to Have Them In a Strategic Way that Drives More Pipeline
- Objections: And How to Speak with People Who Have Objections In a Way that Drives Conversion
- Follow Up Emails: How to Not Eff Up Your F-Ups
- How to Personalise Your Cold Outreach at Scale
- The Comprehensive Encyclopaedia of Sales Plays, Incorporating Personalisation
Timings range between just over half an hour to 89 minutes. Each comes with a downloadable slide deck that you can read through while listening to the episode or save for later use.
Core Sessions is a great course for newbie sales reps that need a comprehensive overview of sales fundamentals.
Completing the course will help you better structure your time, improve cold prospecting skills, and increase the effectiveness of your day-to-day sales routine.
Once you cover the basics, you can identify the areas you feel less confident in, and choose a more niche program to master specific sales skills.
The New Outreach System by SalesLabs
We regularly discuss LinkedIn, and the positive impact incorporating it into sales strategies can have on a bottom line.
Check out our collection of articles dedicated to LinkedIn sales…
➡️ How to use LinkedIn for sales: From finding a lead to closing a deal [+tools]
➡️ How to use LinkedIn for sales prospecting
➡️ 10 creative ways to find leads on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is among the most effective social media platforms for sales. It’s filled with high-quality leads, it attracts users with higher buying intent, and its native algorithms make prospecting and lead generation significantly easier.
But the truth is, with more salespeople realising the potential of the platform, LinkedIn sales have become more competitive. To leverage its benefits effectively, you should know all the tricks of LinkedIn sales and develop a robust strategy for LinkedIn sales outreach.
That’s where Thibaut Souyris’s course, The New Outreach System, comes in.
Thibaut has already lifted the curtain to successful LinkedIn sales in an interview for our blog.
If you want step-by-step instruction and individual guidance from the LinkedIn sales expert, who managed to get the 38% reply rate and 27% meeting rate on LinkedIn, we recommend signing up for the course.
Priced at just €199, The New Outreach System is an extremely affordable online course with a 5-star rating and plenty of testimonials from satisfied salespeople.
Here’s what’s included in the course…
- The foundations of successful LinkedIn prospecting. How to define your Ideal Customer Profile, how to understand the problems your ICPs are trying to solve, types of triggers and how to use them for cold outreach
- Trigger & Lead Hunting. The 3 main prospect sources on LinkedIn and how to use them to add relevance to your outreach
- Sequence & Messaging. How to build the skeleton of your outreach sequence, how to cadence your touchpoints, 3 high-impact messaging frameworks for asynchronous prospecting
- Navigating Conversations. Different types of replies, how to navigate a conversation to book a meeting
- Routine Building. How many prospects to contact daily to reach your sales target, building a daily prospecting routine
- Video Prospecting on LinkedIn
- The Prospecting Tracker
➡️ Check out our guide to writing high-converting LinkedIn prospecting messages and receive access to 28 free LinkedIn prospecting message templates.
Quality Qualification: Meddic Lead Qualification Training by The Sales Optimisation Company
Keeping your sales pipeline lively alone isn't enough to boost your sales.
To meet sales targets, ensure that the leads you populate your sales pipeline with are high quality and actually have a chance to convert.
Remember, it’s quality over quantity!
If you want to stop wasting time on people not likely to buy from you, honing in on the ones who are, you need to properly qualify leads.
Quality Qualification: Meddic Lead Qualification Training by The Sales Optimisation Company is a great course for every sales rep that wants to learn the difference between a low-quality and high-quality lead, how to find better sales opportunities, how to understand who company champions are, and how to identify decision makers to sell to.
Upon graduation from the Quality Qualification: Meddic Lead Qualification Training program, you’ll be able to…
- Uncover decision-making criteria
- Sell to people most likely to buy
- Determine decision makers
- Establish an internal champion
- Create accurate sales forecasting
You’ll also receive complete MEDDIC Qualifying Training workbooks, post-training reinforcement content, and access to the vendor’s exclusive community Facebook group for ongoing support.
The training comes in various formats - choose between virtual instructor-led training and a live workshop. The length of the training program is half a day to a full day, or multiple two hour VILT sessions.
➡️ Meanwhile, check out our article about lead scoring.
How To Cold Call With Confidence by SalesBuzz
Sales calls can be scary. Without exaggerating, they spook out even the most experienced sales reps - let alone beginners.
Hangups, awkward silence, gatekeepers, wrong timing; sales calls are filled with potentially unpleasant experiences.
But the truth is, 92% of all customer interactions happen over the phone.
Like it or loathe it, you need to master the art of cold calling.
➡️ Check out our 9 sales call planning tips to win your next call.
Fortunately, you’re not alone. There’s a wonderful online sales training program by SalesBuzz that’s entirely dedicated to cold calling. How To Cold Call With Confidence by SalesBuzz offers training for teams and individuals to help improve their B2B phone skills!
Broken down into several 50-minute classes, the training program covers the following topics…
- Your New Opening Value Statement. How to pique a prospect's interest in the first few seconds of a sales call, how to eliminate “no, thanks”, “not interested” / “we’re all set” responses
- Gatekeepers, Voicemails & Email. How to avoid getting rejected by gatekeepers, how to increase voicemail callbacks
- Engagement Questions. How to get your prospect to open up, how to get prospects to recognise existing problems and challenges, how to find a prospects buying motives, how to create urgency for a solution
- Qualifying. Identifying real decision makers, what to do when speaking to decision-makers, how to qualify your prospect on price or affordability
- Presentation, Objection Handling & Closing Skills. How to give presentations that hit the prospect's hot buttons, how to uncover the objection and close the sale
- Follow-up Calls & Referrals. How to follow up, how to safely get more referrals without risking client relationships
The cold calling training program also focuses on goal setting and time management. You’ll learn how to plan your sales calls ahead and stay productive at all times.
For better comprehension and confidence, each course of the training program offers ready-made scripts and templates, as well exams, quizzes, and certificates.
Sales Pitch and Closing by VirtualSpeech
No matter how great your offer is, you won’t be able to close a deal if you fail to deliver your pitch correctly. It’s essential to build rapport with your potential customer, identify their needs, and personalise your pitch to speak to them directly.
Sales Pitch and Closing by VirtualSpeech allows sales reps to perfect their pitch delivery skills to maximise pitching impact and increase the number of deals they win.
Some things that this training program’s courses cover include…
- Connecting with the audience
- Your mannerisms
- Your appearance
- Preparing for the pitch
- Delivering the sales pitch
- Handling objections
- Closing the deal
The most interesting thing about this online sales training program is that it’s VR-based. At key points during the course, you'll be prompted to practice your newly acquired knowledge in one of the following VR training scenarios…
- Practice sales pitch
- Pitching at a trade show
- Body language and rapport building
- Prospect meeting
- Selling generic products
- Elevator pitches
- Active listening exercises
Don’t worry if you don’t have a VR headset, you can purchase one with the course.
With the Sales Pitch and Closing sales training program by VirtualSpeech, you’ll…
- Be able to deliver a confident, engaging and effective sales pitch that drives results
- Know the top techniques that influence and persuade people to purchase
- Present yourself with confidence and clarity
- Build authentic connections with prospects
- Handle objections with ease and use them to negotiate a winning deal
Upon completion of this 3-hour-long training program, you’ll receive a digital certificate.
Negotiating Mastery by Sandler
Price sales objections are among the biggest challenges salespeople face.
No matter how great your product or service is on paper, the majority of customers won’t miss out on an opportunity to save money. You’ll be wading through a stream of “this is too pricey” and “we don’t need it” objections before you can close a deal.
Giving discounts is rarely an option. Not only can this destroy your product’s or service’s value in the eyes of the target audience, but it also robs you of revenue.
Make sure you mitigate the impact of negotiations while still winning the customer.
Negotiating Mastery is hosted by the leading name in the sales training industry, Sandler.
Some of the topics covered in this program include…
- Negotiating effectively
- Understanding and dealing with the professional negotiator
- Sources of negotiating leverage
- Personality, style, and persuasion
- The most common negotiating mistakes
- Top 12 gambits buyers use and the countermeasures
- Breaking through apparent impasses
- Concessions
- Preparing for your next negotiation
Check out our resources on sales objection handling…
➡️ Turning ‘no’ into ‘yes’: Guide to handling sales objections
➡️ 11 types of sales objections and 34 ready-made responses
By the end of the Sandler sales training program, you’ll…
- Prepare to reach win-win outcomes
- Gain equal value for every concession you make
- Define your walkaway points
- Lead a collaborative negotiation
- Confidently handle difficult situations
Selling Through Curiosity by SalesHood
Consider yourself to be a more experienced sales rep? One that already knows the basics of successful selling, and just needs a training program that will refresh all the knowledge and give you a boost?
Selling Through Curiosity by SalesHood is a great course to look into.
This patented sales training course by Barry Rhein, a sales leader with over 30 years of experience in sales training and sales methodology consulting, promises to help increase sales, reduce discounting, increase the average deal size, and shorten the sales cycle.
All these benefits become possible through an elaborate range of topics. The Selling Through Curiosity sales training curriculum includes plenty of sessions. For example…
- Discovery
- Effective note taking
- Qualification
- Advanced questioning techniques
- Creating customised presentations
- Objection handling
- Negotiating
- … and more!
Key Account Management Training Course by KLOZERS
Closing a deal is only half the battle. To truly succeed as a salesperson, you should retain existing customers too.
For typical businesses, up to 70% of next year's revenues come from this year's customers.
Minimising customer churn and increasing your customers’ Life-Time Value (LTV) should be top priorities.
➡️ Read our article, How CRM helps customer retention: 9 CRM strategies to reduce customer churn.
The Key Account Management Training Course by KLOZERS is a top-level training program for salespeople who understand the importance of customer retention.
Divided into four sessions, the course covers the following topics…
- Understanding key account management. Research, segmentation, and analysis required to win and retain high-value accounts.
- Mastering the complex sale. How to identify and map different decision-makers within the customers' decision-making unit, understanding influence and power within the key account, and dealing with competing priorities.
- Consultative selling skills. How to position yourself as a subject matter expert and ask powerful questions that sell value, not price.
- Account management campaigns. Short and long-term account management strategies for un-surfacing additional decision makers, uncovering value and driving new sales enquiries whilst maximising your productivity.
The world of sales is extremely competitive, so it’s worth investing in knowledge today for your business to thrive tomorrow.
Make sure you combine sales management training with sales rep training and keep your sales team as professional as they need to be.
We’ll make sure you have all the right tools to put your knowledge into practice.
Bring order to your sales process; give NetHunt CRM a try!