As a sales coach, you want your sales reps to be confident and effective in any sales situation. But how do you prepare them for the tough sales scenarios that they might encounter, such as dealing with objections, negotiating prices, or closing the deal? Here are some tips to help you train your sales reps for these challenging situations.
The first step is to identify the most common sales scenarios that your sales reps face or might face in the future. You can do this by analyzing your sales data, customer feedback, competitor research, and industry trends. You can also ask your sales reps to share their experiences and challenges with you. Once you have a list of sales scenarios, prioritize them based on their frequency, difficulty, and impact.
In my first sales job, I ventured into a role well beyond my expertise. My knowledge of the market was limited, but I took the risk, sensing it would be worthwhile. During my first sales call, I oozed enthusiasm. The customer had encountered many newbies but kindly granted me an appointment. In my role, I lacked blueprint reading skills, a crucial requirement. When asked to perform a "take off," I was clueless. He saw my confusion, irritated but polite, and I admitted my ignorance. This low point became a career catalyst as he decided to teach me. Fortunately, I learned quickly. Back at the office, I sought help from anyone willing to listen. Within a year, that first customer became my largest, all because I kept showing up and learning.
By uncompromisingly focusing initial sales training on understanding and truly feeling the benefits of the products for the customer. Thus Sparking inspiration for being endlessly able to communicate about those buying reasons for the customer, (based on the five universal buying reasons). Sincere will to see things from the customers pov is THE way for sales to succeed in whatever situation.
To me, deep diving into real-time sales scenarios should be THE foundation of any robust sales strategy. If you as a manager can merge data insights with the on-ground experiences of your sales team, you'll be able to truly capture the "pulse" of your market. Remember, every challenge you and your team face today (close losts are important! ) will pave the way for a more informed decision and strategy tomorrow. Keep listening, keep learning, stay curious and informed!
The next step is to create realistic role-plays based on the sales scenarios that you identified. Role-plays are a great way to simulate the real-life situations that your sales reps might encounter and to practice their skills, techniques, and strategies. You can design the role-plays to be as specific and relevant as possible, using real customer profiles, product features, pricing options, and objections. You can also vary the role-plays to include different scenarios, such as cold calls, follow-ups, demos, proposals, and referrals.
Role playing and running multiple scenarios with my team is our best exercise - we challenge each other, work through best and worst case scenarios, anticipate and prep for objections and questions, and the process helps us realize if anyone from the customer’s buying/selection process may have been overlooked - this process helps us get the most engaging audience and trains our reps to collaborate internally for high value wins.
To be realistic and instructive role plays should 1) Use Case studies and customer success stories to illustrate how to overcome tough sales situations 2) Competitor interactions with client need to be included to understand what might happen and how to adapt. 3) Needs to be tailored to reinforce the learning you are trying to accomplish 4) If possible make it fun
Despite the actual interaction between sales rep and health care provider being the actual crux of the job, so many reps hate role plays….! Practising verbally so that reps are familiar with the messaging, specific phraseology and become familiar with the scientific or marketing pieces etc is crucial. The actual “ role play” environment is what needs to change. Taking out “ observers “ who don’t add any value for the rep alleviates a lot of this stress. I’ve seen the stress level significantly diminish if the observers are peers of the rep, they can give their observations which are based on their own experiences so the feedback is relevant and the rep does get to practice and wordsmith with a colleague who lives the same role.
One of the most fascinating things I’ve come across in all organizations is that when creating these role play situations no one has actually consulted with the rep in terms of what they want to practice or the situation/issue they want to address. An eye opening theme for me came many yrs ago where we as a training dept created a “ learning centre” where we had physicians and pharmacists attend and the reps would select time slots where they could interact with these HCPs in any way they wanted to - practising verbiage in response to specific questions, or discussing scenarios with them. The amount of positive feedback we got was amazing but the interesting thing was the amount of work it took to get the marketing depts to agree to this.
I love the follow-up conversation. My opinion is you either win or learn. I also think this is where you get to practice and develop closing skills. The Follow-Up Conversation: Scenario: After sending a proposal/quote, the sales rep follows up with a lead who has shown interest but hasn't made a decision yet. Objectives: Gauge the prospect's level of interest, address objections, and close the deal. Challenges: Handling objections, providing additional information, and maintaining momentum.
The third step is to provide feedback and coaching to your sales reps after each role-play. Feedback and coaching are essential to help your sales reps improve their performance, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and learn from their mistakes. You can use a feedback model, such as the SBI model (Situation, Behavior, Impact), to give constructive and actionable feedback to your sales reps. You can also use coaching questions, such as open-ended, probing, and reflective questions, to help your sales reps analyze their own behavior, find solutions, and set goals.
After each meeting or presentation, simply ask two questions. What did we do well? What can we do better? We learned this from Craig Wortmann from Sales Engine Inc. during one of his outstanding sales trainings. As a leader, this is an easy way to bring up coaching points that may be noticed during the interaction and address immediately. For the sales rep, it allows them to give valuable feedback without feeling insubordinate. Bonus, it teaches a key skill of how to have a conversation about something we may normally feel uncomfortable discussing. Win-Win.
Feedback is the compass that guides growth. Using a model like SBI ensures feedback remains constructive and objective. However I believe it's the marriage of feedback and self-reflection, through open-ended questions, that will create self-awareness. In my long career as sales leader, I've experienced and learned that my role isn't about providing all the answers, but rather create an environment where our sales reps feel empowered to explore, learn, and evolve.
The fourth step is to reinforce the best practices that your sales reps learned from the role-plays, feedback, and coaching. You can do this by creating a sales playbook that documents the best practices for each sales scenario, such as the steps, scripts, tips, and examples. You can also use gamification, recognition, and rewards to motivate your sales reps to apply the best practices consistently and effectively.
For me a sales playbook is like charting a trusted roadmap for success. However, even the best map is completely useless without having the right mindset. I've experienced that gamification and rewards are fantastic, but creating a culture where continuous learning and applying best practices becomes second nature... THAT to me is THE real game-changer. Always encourage your reps not just to follow, but to "OWN" the journey.
I currently coach a small sales team. The advantage is I get to talk to and coach them daily. I always discuss with them the wins and losses. I am their biggest cheerleader and also the person they want to discuss the challenges of the day. A year ago I wrote a self-published book and we use that as our sales playbook from a strategic viewpoint. We use our CRM for opportunity tracking and to capture and celebrate wins. I have always emphasized the three key steps to winning in sales. Show up Follow up Level up If you show up you build credibility. If you follow up you build trust. If you level up you build your career.
The final step is to monitor and evaluate the results of your sales coaching for different sales scenarios. You can do this by tracking and measuring key sales metrics, such as conversion rates, average deal size, customer satisfaction, and retention. You can also use surveys, interviews, and observations to collect qualitative feedback from your sales reps and customers. By monitoring and evaluating the results, you can assess the impact of your sales coaching, identify the gaps and opportunities, and adjust your coaching plan accordingly.
You can't improve it if you don't measure it. However, sales is as much art as science. So this is not as simple as logging data into a CRM. Recently, we moved to Salesforce as our CRM. It is a powerful tool. It has helped us build a sales process with more consistency. It addressed the science side. The art side is and always has been more nuanced. I still believe collaboration and celebration are effective tools is elevating the art side. I'm still reflecting on how to measure it.
Resilience is essential. Rejections and disappointments are just part of the job. Resilient Sellers embrace obstacles, gain knowledge from mistakes, and keep a positive outlook. In order for sales reps to build resiliency it must be fostered through training, coaching, and a supportive work environment. That means infusing a growth mindset in all coaching activities.
Training, scenario running and role plays are all great exercises to prepare, but nothing will beat the learning they will get from having you sat shoulder to shoulder with them in these situations, and seeing how you also handle them. The comfort and confidence they will feel going into the situation because of it will create the best learning environment. As Mike Tyson famously said ‘everyone has a plan until you get hit in the face’.
The exact same way we prepare for easy scenarios… Extensive learning of the prospects pain points. Exhaustive learning of our solutions to those pain points. AND Lots of Reps!! There is no substitute for time, knowledge, and experience!
In my experience, the most effective way to prepare your sales team for challenging situations to ensure they leverage a consistent sales process that is relevant to the product or service they sell. An effective sales process enables a sales professional to approach challenging situations such as addressing objections/concerns, overcoming drawbacks, negotiating price, and effectively making and asking for commitments confidently, increasing their success building trust with their customers, closing mutually beneficial sales opportunities and knowing when to move on when their product or service is not the best fit.
As a sales leader, I try my best to study sales not only from the traditional sales leaders, like Carnegie, Ziglar, and Maxwell, but also up and coming sales thought leaders. Recently I have been following Alex Hormozi of acquistion.com. As a former gym owner that had to recruit and sell clients to sign up for his gym/program, Alex has hand to hand combat in the sales arena. His podcast "The Game" is a free resource for sales professionals that discusses business and sales. Two key points from Alex. 1. Conviction is the key ingredient to sales. The first person you have to sell is yourself. 2. Conviction itself is not binary. It's not if you believe or not, it's how much you believe. Do yourself a favor, and follow Alex. It's worth it.