subject: Training Your Sales Staff A Must In Today's Competitive Environment [print this page] Within any organization it is the sales staffs that is the heart of any company. Sales generate the cash flow that enables a business to operate as such sales staff are one of the most important components in any business.
Sales staff are expected to offer innovative concepts to their target market - they need to know their needs and wants and how best to sell the company's product to that market. A product or service created and marketed well will then allow companies to create more supplementary products or updated services, but as they introduce these new products or services they must ensure that their sales staff up-skill and stay abreast of any new sales techniques that may assist them in the selling process of the expanded product range.
It is critical for sales staff to get the job right the first time. Their success will reap rewards for the company and will provide the platform for expansion and growth. The sales staff should be managed by a team leader or manager who will take responsibility for sales planning and help individual team members achieve sales targets. The sales manager provides sales staff with the 'how' of sales.
During this stage staff learns exactly how the product and or service works and what benefits it offers to the prospective customer. Product knowledge is an important part of any sales process so sales staff must know the product specifications or service proposition in detail. The sales manager must ensure that his or her team is well equipped to respond to any queries that may be put to them during the sales process.
Confidence in the product or service is important and only with sound knowledge will sales staff conveys this to prospective buyers. Sales staff must know their target market well and develop and refine their sale pitch according to that market. While a marketing team will generally conduct its research on product and receptiveness of the market to it, the sales team fulfils an important role in reporting to the marketing division any negative responses they might receive during a sales pitch.
If feedback is not as positive as expected then it may well be that management will need to either refine the product or service offering or review the marketing strategies. Where a product has been updated to meet market requirements, the new features or applications that consumers wanted must be emphasized in the new re-launch.
Sales staff will be excited about offering the enhanced product and with good sales training should achieve set targets. Sales staff will be the key to any successful organisation and must be properly trained if an organisation is to reach its full potential both during the growth and maturity stages of it life cycle
