10 Signs That B2B Sales Training is What You Need to Grow!

Want to grow your business?  Simple!

The one thing you need to focus on the most is increasing your sales.

Sales is at the heart of all business growth.  No sales = no growth… It’s that serious!

But, what if you’re like many people who are already struggling with sales?  How can you achieve business growth with more sales when you’re already having a hard time closing deals as it is?

With so much information out there on how to increase your sales, including books, seminars, and even webinars, knowing exactly what route to take to learn how to improve your sales can be extremely frustrating.

With that said, we are sharing 10 clear signs that a B2B sales training program is what you need if you want your business to grow!

If you see one of these signs in your business, then growth is contingent on you making the move and getting that training.

Even if you don’t see one of these signs in your own business but are still struggling to grow, a robust B2B sales training will help you gain the best sales knowledge in the least amount of time.

What are you waiting for?  Business growth depends on your sales improving!

What Are the Benefits of B2B Sales Training?

The answer to business growth of almost any kind is increasing sales.

Think about it... Need to hire more people but money is tight?  More sales!  Need to invest in new technology but your bank account is looking sad?  More sales!

Almost all aspects of business growth starts with sales.  If you can't make more sales, then you can't get more money, and you can't expand.

You can have the best product or service, marketing, and business team in the world, but if you can't make sales, then you are sunk!

Therefore, if your goal is business growth, sales should be the first place you make improvements.

However, the trick to improving sales performance is often more than just gathering up some new skills from a book and calling it a day.  If that were the case, most sales teams would be wildly successful today!

If sales teams are serious about improving their game, what they really need is a robust sales training program!

Unlike if you were to just pick up a sales book or take a basic online course, the best sales training program will not only help increase sales, but also:

• Reduce the amount of time it takes to close a sale
• Improve customer relationships so you gain more referrals
• Empowers sales reps to be more independent, successful, and happy

If you want to see your business grow, you need to up your bottom line.  The most effective way to do that is by making improvements in your sales with a robust sales training program!

10 Signs That You Need a B2B Sales Training Program

Are you an entrepreneur, business owner, or salesperson ready to step up to the plate and grow your business?

If so, then you need to focus on sales, sales, and more sales!

But, before getting started, ask yourself if you see any one of these 10 signs that you need to employ a sales training program.

If you see one of the signs and don’t make the necessary investment, you’ll just end up spinning your sales wheels without going absolutely anywhere!

Sales is the foundation of all business growth.  Don’t ruin your chances of growth by avoiding one of these obvious signs that your sales playbook needs improvement!

1. You Feel Like You’re Always Pushing Prospects

How many times have you been in a sales situation where you are the prospect and you feel like the salesperson is pushing the sale upon you?

For example, when you are at the car dealership and there's no doubt in your mind that the sales rep is simply trying to close on you, regardless of how satisfied you are.

We've all been there before, and there's not a single person out there who likes the feeling!

While nobody likes that feeling of being pushed, there are many sales reps out there who feel like they have no other choice than to be pushy.  Because, if they don’t push, they believe that the sale will slip out of their hands.

If you're one of the many salespeople who feels uncomfortable about pushing their prospects but doesn't see any other way of doing things, that is perhaps the clearest sign you could use the help of a sales training program!

Consider this: If you are selling something that you know is worthy of being sold and that people want, why would you ever need to push it on them?  

When you have delicious cake and know that people are hungry, don’t you simply offer it to them, and they respond without hesitation?

Successful sales professionals never push prospects.  They know the value of what they have and they focus on serving it up to the right people... That's it!

Instead of pushing, their mindset is all about serving.  As a result, their sales performance is through the roof.

If you and your sales team's mindset is on pushing rather than service, B2B sales training is what you need to grow!

2. Your Sales Cycle is Long & Drawn-Out

There's a common misconception that it's normal for the sales cycle to take several months to complete.

Because it's such a common misconception, many business owners and salespeople have come to accept that as okay for their business, even though it causes them endless stress.

However, they have unfortunately been misled about what is normal!  And, just because something is normal does not mean it is right.

Believe it or not, but a healthy sales cycle should only last a matter of a few weeks.  In fact, the shorter your sales cycle, the more effective it probably is.

If your sales cycle is long and drawn-out, it is a red flag that there are potentially multiple issues with the sales process or general approach, including:

• Lacking control over the sale
• Having a disorganized sales funnel
• Not being assertive with the prospect

If your sales cycle seems to drag on for an endless amount of time, sales training could help identify what is causing the problem!  Not only that, but it will help shorten the sales cycle which directly leads to stronger growth. 

Just because long sales cycles are common in the sales world doesn't mean that they are normal or okay!  Get training to shorten up your cycle time and close more deals in less time!

3. You’re Always Negotiating & Never Getting What You Deserve

When you get to the end of your sales pitches where you put your price on the table, do your prospects usually sink back in their chairs and say something along the lines of, "let's talk about that"?

Negotiating in sales comes up every now and again, but if the majority of your sales end in you having to negotiate your price or terms, then you have a problem!

When you open yourself up to negotiating, you might think that you're trying to be nice to your prospects, but all you're really doing is cheapening yourself.

By happily lowering your offer, you send the message that your product or service isn't really worth the value that you set it at.  

As a result, you get less money than what you need to produce an excellent product or service, and your prospect walks away having saved money but not fully respecting your needs!

And, because B2B sales is all about establishing solid relationships, it is of the utmost importance that both parties get what they deserve when working together!

With that said, if many of your sales end in you having to negotiate your price or the terms of it, then there's a good chance you could use some sales training.  In no time, you'll have the confidence you need to stand firm on your price and prevent negotiations from happening in the first place!

4. You Don’t Know What Your Prospects Want

Stop whatever you're doing and ask yourself this question: Do I know what my ideal prospect's greatest needs are?

If your answer to this question is no, then you have a serious problem!

As we mentioned above, successful sales professionals have a service-oriented mindset.  Because of this, they know exactly what their customers need the most!

Think of the sales process as a discovery process: You use it to uncover not just the surface level needs of the prospect, but also those lurking below the surface.  Only when you know those do you stand the best chance at serving them well!

When you don't know exactly what your prospects need, you're basically asking for countless problems within your:

1. Lead generation process
2. Cold calling, emailing, and other sales prospecting techniques
3. Sales pitches

And those are just a few of the places that you'll see problems!

So, if you can't say right now what your ideal prospect's needs are, then you could probably use some sales training to fine tune your entire sales process.  Specifically, you could use some help with asking the right questions and painting a picture of your ideal prospect.

While it might seem like a small thing, knowing exactly what your prospects need is the core of business growth.  When you don't know what they want, it's impossible for you to serve them and for you to grow!

5. You’re Jumping Through Hoops Trying to Make New Sales

Straight up: Most sales methodology you hear about these days is wildly overcomplicated.  By that, we mean it's so complex that it ends up creating more problems than it solves! 

In fact, over-complication is at the core of a broken sales strategy.

If you feel like you're jumping through hoops trying to make new sales, it's a good sign that you could use sales training to help simplify things.  Specifically, you need some help creating simpler processes.

Believe it or not, but most sales teams employ methods that are significantly more complicated than they need to be.  They believe that, the more complicated something appears, the more beneficial it must be!

Unfortunately, these people are sadly mistaken.  If something feels complex on the outside, it's highly likely that it won’t be as beneficial for sales as you think.  Rather, it will give you that feeling of jumping through hoops trying to make things work!

Before you know it, you'll be burnt out just trying to tackle one single prospect.  Even worse, your sales strategy will fail in the end. 

Sales is not complicated!  If you're having to jump through hoops to make new sales, you are overcomplicating things and could use sales training to help create simple sales processes!

6. Your Sales Team Lacks Accountability

How many times have you or one of your team members failed to close a deal and then said something along the lines of "if only the prospect wasn't so distracted" or "if only the marketing team would have found us better leads"?

What people are really saying when they say things like this is "it's not my fault that the sale didn't close."

Here's the thing: Nobody ever likes the feeling of letting a deal slip out of their hands.  But, not taking accountability for that loss only makes the situation worse.

When you are able to stand up and say "my fault, next time I will do better", you take accountability of the situation.  And when you can take accountability, you immediately empower yourself.

On the flip side, when you think nothing is ever your fault, you've in essence made yourself a victim to circumstances out of your hands.  And when you're a victim, it's impossible to ever improve because you are at the mercy of others.

While it might seem like a small thing, having accountability is a sales technique in its own class.  Accountability = empowerment.

It’s impossible to achieve business growth without accountability.  

Most people want credit  when things go well, but never when things go wrong...  Will you and your sales team members be strong enough to take accountability for every situation?

7. Your Team Doesn’t Listen to Understand

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that we live in a society that is becoming increasingly volatile.  Even between friends, it's an everyday challenge to sit down and have a civilized conversation without firing up an argument.

While there are many contributing factors to this volatility, one of the central issues is that we've gotten worse at listening for the sake of understanding people.

Instead of putting ourselves in their shoes and trying to understand their perspective, we merely listen for the sake of responding!

Listening does not immediately equal understanding unless you set the intention of doing so. You can hear someone talk all day, but that doesn't mean that you understand them at all!

Unfortunately, this same phenomena has been a problem in sales and business development for years! 

Instead of trying to understand what prospects want, B2B sales teams simply open their ears to listen without ever putting themselves in the prospect's shoes.  Rather than truly listening to them, they stick to their finely tuned sales script.  

As a result, they think they know what their prospects need, but they end up completely missing the mark.

Ask yourself this: Does your sales team know how to listen to understand, and not just listen to respond?  If they do, then you would likely see wildly successful sales.  Because, at the end of the day, sales is about understanding how to solve problems!

If you and your sales team struggle to listen to understand, then the help of a sales training program is of the utmost importance.

8. Communication is a Disaster

Do any of these communication disasters ever happen in your company:

1. It takes days for prospects to respond to you or your team to respond to prospects;
2. You don't communicate with your prospect company's top decision makers on a regular basis;
3. Your prospects never respond to follow-up?

Communication is a fundamental piece of sales that, unfortunately, can't be taught in any basic sales skills program or book.

To get communication down, it takes hands-on practice.  Not only that, but it takes a deeper understanding of the psychological pieces of prospects.

While we like to think that we are straightforward people, the truth is that all of us, including our prospects, are multi-layered individuals.  

Moreover, people are more complicated than we'd like to admit!

Those layers are what make communication extremely challenging.  A sales training course with robust sales psychology training is absolutely necessary if you want to establish solid lines of communication with prospects!

Only when you get communication down can you expect to achieve growth.

9. Your Sales Strategy Never Goes as Planned

So, you've put together the perfect sales strategy.  You've laid out every detail, from lead generation to closing.

But then right off the bat, something small that you weren't expecting happens and you completely derail.  Then, you spend the rest of the sales cycle in a complete disaster!

Here's the thing: If you're trying to eat more greens but you despise broccoli, would you make grilled broccoli for dinner?  Hopefully not, because then you're more likely to hate your greens and slip up on your diet.

In a similar way, many sales leaders put together a sales strategy only to fall off the rails a minute after kicking things off because the strategy wasn’t right for them in the first place.

This is all-to-common in sales, and it happens because sales leaders try to model their own strategy based on somebody else's.  Then when they do fall off the rails, they have no clue why!

While there are certain musts of putting together a sales strategy, trying to replicate what works for some other company and thinking that it will work for you is nonsense.

Instead, what sales organizations should do is put together a strategy that fits their own unique sales approach.  If you know that something doesn't work for you, don't try to force it!  Otherwise, your strategy will completely fall apart and you’ll be left scratching your head.

A sales training program that helps you build your own unique sales strategy and gives you the confidence to stick to it is the answer you are looking for!  

No more falling off the rails the second the train starts moving.  Keep falling off, and it will be impossible for you to achieve the kind of growth you desire.

10. You Feel Personally Trapped

Do you ever feel like you are trapped during the sales process?

For example, when a prospect doesn't respond to your follow-up, do you feel like you are trapped in a box and there is little to nothing you can do to recover the situation?

Maybe a better way to describe it is you feel like you are in a free fall, with so many factors out of your control that you want to throw your hands in the air and give up!

First of all, if that sounds like you, then know that that is actually a very common feeling in sales.  In fact, countless sales professionals and business owners struggle with that feeling of being trapped or in a free fall.

But, while it is common, that does not mean it is normal or okay!

Here's the thing: Business to business sales can certainly be challenging, even for top salespeople!  But, if you're to the point where you feel like you are trapped, then the help of sales coaching or training is the solution. 

Believe it or not, but effective sales training is mostly about empowerment and development of the salesperson than it is teaching them a bunch of selling skills.

Empowering sales reps is about not just giving them the tools they need to close deals, but teaching them how to use those tools in any given sales encounter.  Training = empowerment. 

Knowing a bunch of basic selling skills is pointless unless you know how to apply them!

If you currently feel trapped in the sales process, you don't need to stay that way.  You can break out of that box and become unstoppable with the help of an empowering sales training program.

Final Thoughts on Signs That You Need a Sales Training Course

If you see any one of these 10 signs in your business...  simply having your sales management team read some basic sales tips is going to do absolutely nothing but waste time.

What you need instead is an empowering sales training program!  One that doesn't just tell salespeople what it takes to be successful, but empowers them with tools and shows them how to use those tools in real-life situations.

No sales performance improvement = no growth.

And, what better sales trainer could be out there than the one who has already helped his business clients make more than $26 million in sales since going through his online sales training?