by Venchito Tampon | Last Updated on December 9, 2024
If one set of employees has been overlooked for corporate training, it’s the team of sales managers.
One of the main reasons is that VPs and Senior Executives think these sales managers already have the competencies they need to succeed. Truthfully, like any employee, they need to ramp up their skills over time.
In this guide, I’ll share what kind of training you would provide new sales managers and share some of my personal insights as a corporate trainer and resource speaker.
Transitioning into a sales management role requires an arsenal of skills, from leading a team to managing processes and inspiring your sales agents to continuously invest in themselves so they can produce the company’s desired output.
You may be confused about which one to start with, but below is a solid list of sales training programs you should start using to train your sales managers.
What Kind Of Training Would You Provide To New Sales Managers?
1. Consultative Selling
Gone are the days when you sold products one-time off, like a transactional type of selling when you went to groceries, malls, or brick-and-mortar shops.
New sales managers should understand that selling is more than just closing deals; it is purely solving customers’ problems. The better you solve, the higher the chances of achieving their sales goals.
I have an entire guide on consultative selling and B2B sales – so be sure to check it out.
Essentially, consultative selling involves understanding and assessing clients’ needs so that you can solve their problems with customized solutions from your offer.
It’s that simple. If sales managers can start selling the right way by wearing a consultant hat, they’ll be better able to attract qualified clients—people who need help and truly want to solve their problems.
Here’s a good idea to start training your team. Practice role-playing scenarios where managers must assess clients’ needs and recommend solutions. You can do so with a facilitator or an outsourced corporate training provider. Let Rainamakers help you if you want to be done right.
2. Negotiation Skills
Another training need for sales managers is negotiation skills.
In our experience as corporate trainers, we’ve seen this lacking with sales managers despite their years of experience in the industry. They’ve been doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting results, but they don’t see much to be satisfied with the outcome.
Train your sales managers to identify common ground and find win-win solutions for both parties (the client and you/your company as the solution provider).
They must know how to answer or handle objections and address clients’ concerns without compromising value. By using these sales techniques, your sales managers will be more equipped to close deals themselves instead of delegating these tasks without prior knowledge to their sales agents.
Remember: they can only share what they already have with their team. If they don’t have the skills they need, they can’t share them with others.
One exercise activity you can have with sales managers is stimulating high-stakes negotiations, during which they can work on their negotiation skills and evaluate strategies for reaching agreements.
You need an external perspective who knows how negotiations work. If you need negotiation skills training, contact our team, and we will provide it.
3. Effective Communication
Sales require the ability to communicate the results that you want your clients to get. This includes not only demonstrating features and benefits—which most salespeople focus on—but also strongly communicating your brand with finesse.
Effective communication training is essential for sales managers to ensure the team understands goals, targets, and strategies. This way, they can align their team toward having the same vision, mission, and action plans, better addressing issues and challenges, and ultimately getting to where they want to be at the end of the year.
Effective communication also helps them train themselves to provide construction feedback to their sales agents. One word makes a difference. If they miss out on providing guidance, they won’t see any improvement in sales results. That’s why having a strong communication skill set for sales managers can bring their team to the next level.
A good practice for this is conducting team meetings where managers can practice presenting objectives and delivering feedback. It is best to create an environment where it is good to learn, unlearn, and relearn new things—set some rules before doing the exercise.
If you need help, contact Rainmakers for effective communication training for your sales managers.
4. Virtual Engagement
In a hybrid world, virtual engagement is indispensable. Many salespeople now have systems for virtual engagement, as they can reach more sales prospects while having less stress to physically meet them (given the hassle of traffic we have here in the Philippines).
Managers must learn how to lead virtual meetings and use tools like Zoom, MS Teams, or Slack for effective remote communication. Thanks to 2020 happenings, Filipinos were pushed to learn technologies in the comfort of their homes to better market and sell their products or services.
Another upside of learning to engage in virtual activities is the ability to build rapport virtually through personalized approaches. Learning how to look at the camera every time you speak and using non-verbal languages to better communicate your message is a plus skill any salesperson, including sales managers, should practice and master.
One good workshop idea for this training area is hosting a mock virtual meeting where sales managers refine their online communication techniques. It is best to use the product or service you’re offering itself as an example.
5. Lead Generation (Prospecting)
New sales managers should know how to identify and nurture potential clients. If they just hand this critical component of selling to their sales agents, they won’t have a chance to improve processes for their sales teams.
Key skills in lead generation must include building a prospecting pipeline, which means learning how to use CRM systems to organize leads (there are many web tools – one, in particular, is Hubspot).
Another skill is lead qualification, which is learning to identify high-potential prospects among leads you collect or gather. From there, you should train your managers with follow-up strategies to maintain consistent communication without overwhelming prospects.
These can help your sales managers develop the mastery needed to attract a large number of prospects to their sales pipeline.
Real-World Task: Assign managers to create a lead generation plan targeting specific demographics or industries. In our sales training, we have an ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) worksheet activity asking our participants to create their ICP based on their preferred product or product category.
6. Sales Management and Leadership
Of course, given that we’re talking about sales managers, they should excel at sales management and leadership. They should have the mindset of both a leader and manager and transition from individual contributors to ones worthy of influencing others.
Sales management includes inspiring the team through appreciation, recognition, and goal setting. It also includes performance monitoring and training salespeople to identify KPIs to measure individual and team success.
Another key area is conflict resolution, which equips them to mediate disputes within the team (as they arise).
One perfect activity for sales management and leadership is role-play scenarios in which managers address underperformance or team conflicts. Although this activity may be too serious to conduct, it would really help them deal with it in actual work.
7. Personality Development Using the DISC Framework
Knowing your personality type helps you understand and accept your strengths and weaknesses. You can adapt to different situations by gaining strengths from other personality types and using them to your own advantage.
You can use the DISC framework to help your sales managers recognize the personality types of their team members and clients. This will also enhance their selling ability, as they will know how to adjust communication and sales strategies based on personality traits.
Hire a certified DISC facilitator to conduct DISC assessment training with your team and provide personalized coaching for better practical application.
Sales Managers Can Always Go To The Next Level
Beyond position, sales managers can invest time and resources to improve their skills and lead their sales associates in achieving results. With specific areas of sales training for managers listed above, they’ll be better equipped to overcome challenges in selling and create sustainable growth for their teams.
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