Many of us went to 12 years of primary and secondary school based on one fundamental premise: that when you don’t know something, the best way to learn is to be taught in a structured setting.
The same is true in sales. While some sales reps may come in with sharper instincts or more charisma than others, we know there are still dozens of techniques and tactics that can be taught to foster a more successful all-around sales rep—and the data backs it. Companies willing to invest in sales training are 57 percent more effective than rival companies that make no such investments.
It’s clear that providing your team with thorough sales training is well worth the effort. And these days, when business leaders can take advantage of so many phenomenal online training courses, it’s easier than ever to support your reps’ professional development right from their desks.
Companies willing to invest in sales training are 57% more effective than rival companies that make no such investments.
Get ready to practice your note-taking skills. In this article, we reveal the 15 best online sales training programs in 2022, sorted by training types.
Enterprise sales training
Enterprise sales are the big fish that take quite a bit of finagling to hook. These sales are long and complicated; they’re almost never accomplished by placing one call to an individual person or company.
Enterprise sales tend to have an extended sales cycle, and they’ll involve many high-level people—on average, half a dozen stakeholders or company influencers will have a say. It’s often challenging to appeal to different company members with diverse priorities. However, it’s worth training your top sales reps to become great at enterprise sales because they tend to yield high profits.
Sandler Training offers a specific Enterprise Selling Training course. This program was built to help companies transform their reps into highly skilled salespeople who understand the enterprise sales process and can deliver great value to customers.
Enterprise processes often mean a higher cost of customer acquisition, a longer sales cycle, and a tougher audience for sales pitches. Sandler Training offers structured solutions for all those hurdles. This course includes training on account management, client mapping, relationship development, client retention, bid review, opportunity navigation, competitive positioning, and more.
Overall, the Sandler Enterprise Selling Training course excels because it creates a common set of easily used tools that help progress sales, offers clear language to use when making those sales, and builds a strategic platform that enables your process to be scalable and repeatable.
MEDDIC Academy aims to make enterprise sales easy. It is a well-reviewed all-around sales training program with a proven history of success in the tech sector. Offering sales training courses and workshops online and/or in-person, MEDDIC Academy covers topics such as “How to Develop Champions,” “ROI, Return on Investment,” and “Say No.”
The full course is made up of 10 mini-courses and one comprehensive quiz to check learners’ understanding of the program. With MEDDIC, reps learn how to progress through a methodical assessment, qualification, and analysis of the enterprise accounts they’re negotiating with. This renowned checklist method gives reps an easily navigable and repeatable process.
MEDDIC’s full basic program involves about four hours of self-guided learning and two additional hours of virtual instructor-led training. There are advanced, training, and managing programs available as well.
B2B sales training
B2B sales training focuses on sales between businesses, rather than from business to customer (B2C). Successful B2B sales reps must have a wealth of product, market, and customer knowledge so that they can convince savvy company decision-makers that their product or service will solve their problems.
B2B sales tend to be less about forging emotional connections, and more about offering accurate and clear information in a helpful manner. With the right program, you can train your reps to flourish in profitable B2B selling, upselling, and cross-selling.
Udemy’s online training course “Sales Mastery: Proven B2B Sales Strategies and Techniques” aims to teach sales reps how to keep the B2B sales process moving smoothly and effectively. Accessible to anyone with a computer with Windows, Linux, or MAC OS, this course is valuable to any rep, business owner, or entrepreneur who wants to improve their B2B selling.
Udemy provides information on sales techniques for targeting ideal customers, developing a compelling sales pitch, and closing deals. Discover how to find your perfect customers, convince those customers to buy, and develop long and strong relationships to keep them coming back for more.
Udemy’s “Sales Mastery” course also helps sales reps familiarize themselves with the most common customer rejections and arms them with appropriate responses designed to overcome sales hurdles.
LinkedIn Learning is a rich continuing education resource for many areas of business and sales knowledge. For B2B sales, try a beginner to intermediate course called “Business-to-Business Sales.”
Led by Robbie Baxter, LinkedIn Learning’s course covers a typical day in B2B sales, provides insights into the skillset and demeanor of a successful salesperson, and offers advice about how to find a job in B2B selling if you’re trying to break into the business.
For more established sales managers and leaders, Baxter also provides tips on how to achieve B2B sales goals, how to structure a great sales team, and how to collaborate between departments to improve communication.
SalesBuzz offers a B2B Phone Skills Improvement Program that aims to train B2B sales teams in effective phone sales. The program is designed to build confidence, eliminate any reluctance or hesitancy to make cold calls, reinforce sales basics, and convert more leads.
This course is fully online and can be navigated at the user’s own pace. When signing up, you’ll receive immediate access and will be able to use the course resources for 12 months. The course includes eight core modules, and each module takes approximately one hour to complete.
SalesBuzz’s program also includes a convenient library of sales script templates. These templates include scripts for cold and warm call openers, voicemails, emails, and follow-up interactions—plus suggestions for how to pin down and respond to specific customer information such as price point, time frame, pain points, and objections.
SaaS sales training
SaaS stands for Software as a Service. It is online software that customers generally pay for on a month-by-month basis. SaaS sales training is often a subset of B2B sales training and is appropriate for businesses that sell their software on a subscription model.
SalesHood’s sales training and coaching courses are designed to help sales reps navigate B2B SaaS sales. Offering turnkey sales skills training, these sessions help remote sales and customer success teams significantly increase their productivity. SalesHood also has an on-demand library of training resources, which is accessible on all web browsers and mobile devices.
The course content is based on Elay Cohen’s experiences leading sales enablement at Salesforce during several years of notable growth. SalesHood offers “coaching huddles” that guide frontline managers and their teams through a structured learning experience that lets them proceed at their own pace while still feeling personally coached.
With an upfront acknowledgement that selling SaaS products can be a unique challenge for sales professionals, the Brooks Group offers insight on navigating this tough landscape. This customized sales training program provides your sales teams with tools to improve their hiring, planning, and selling skills.
The program offers advice on how to juggle the numerous approvals needed in the buying process, how to approach the challenging task of qualifying SaaS leads, and how to communicate with prospects about the constantly changing nature of digital products.
The Brooks Group has more than 40 years of experience in aiding sales organizations in increasing their skills, closing any knowledge gaps, and learning the nuances of SaaS sales. This course encourages a dedicated approach to training, preparedness, and detailed product knowledge—making it appropriate for any and all SaaS sales professionals.
Improve your sales process
A good sales process is the foundation of any successful sales organization. Learn how to improve your sales process and close more deals.
SPIN selling is a consultative sales technique that encourages reps to lead with certain types of questions. SPIN stands for: situation, problem, implication, and need-payoff.
Situation questions allow sales reps to understand a client’s business goals. Problem questions allow sales reps to pinpoint a customer’s needs. Implication questions create urgency on why clients should buy and buy now. Need-payoff questions guide customers toward seeing the wonderful rewards of buying and help move them to the next stage in your sales pipeline.
If you’re interested in learning more about SPIN selling and what makes it so effective, check out our complete guide to SPIN selling.
The Miller Heiman Group (now a part of Korn Ferry) offers SPIN selling training that is designed to overcome customer indifference. Appropriate for sales representatives of all skill levels, Miller Heiman Group’s SPIN Selling Conversations include activities and immersive exercises that teach sales reps the skills they need to master the art of customer conversations.
The SPIN Selling Training Courses guide reps to uncover buyer urgency, increase their average sale value, overcome buyer skepticism, and accelerate the business sales cycle. These courses have a proven track record of growing sales pipelines, improving sales funnel management, and increasing return customer numbers.
You can access these training courses online, using any computer or mobile device. The Miller Heiman Group also offers in-person courses if desired, or a combination of both online and in-person training.
Other worthwhile sales training courses
There are countless online training programs that offer excellent and varied insights into effective selling. Consider the needs of your business and what will most benefit your sales team as you select your ideal training course.
Sales Engine is a sales consulting firm that aims to improve company growth via transformative teaching and virtual selling tools. Coming from a variety of diverse business perspectives (including sales reps, active investors, venture capitalists, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and sales managers), Sales Engine offers an impressive selection of courses to help increase sales skills.
One particular course of note is “The Art of Sales: Mastering the Selling Process Specialization,” which teaches strategies for becoming as effective and efficient at sales as possible. This course offers insights on how to close more deals, improve performance, positively stand out, attract customers, and build support for new initiatives within your company.
HubSpot Academy’s Inbound Sales Course offers certification for free. This course focuses on identifying, connecting with, and understanding new prospects, and then learning how to position yourself as a collaborator in solving their problems.
The Inbound Sales Course can benefit both sales reps and sales managers. It consists of five online lessons that take about two hours to complete in total. The central aim of the course is to teach sales professionals how to identify promising contacts, nurture those budding relationships, and run effective sales calls and presentations.
GoSkills offers an Introduction to Sales course that is great for sales professionals who are just learning how to sell. In over 30 practical tutorials, new sales representatives explore tools and techniques that help them develop the right attitude and skill set to be successful.
Video tutorials and personalized learning aids are available online and on mobile devices, and users are encouraged to learn at their own pace. Unlimited tests and quizzes are available so sales reps can check in on their own progress and retention of the course information.
Some course highlights include:
Lessons on how to identify the four main personality types of your prospects and how to connect with each of them
How to master your own attitude, beliefs, and emotions in order to become successful in sales
Best strategies for following up and closing deals
ASLAN offers virtual three-month training courses that focus on leadership, inside sales, field sales, and call center sales. Users can work with instructors virtually as well as proceed through online materials at their own discretion. This framework is managed by the user through a cloud-based dashboard that tracks training activities.
ASLAN believes that sales reps need unique sales training for every role. To this end, the company offers a variety of customizable sales training programs to best suit sales professionals’ needs in their companies.
Their inside sales course explores the unique challenges of sales over the phone, while the call center sales course more specifically offers training to enhance customer experience and increase the revenue per sales call. Additionally, there are courses that focus on action selling for every type of salesperson as well as courses that train professionals in company leadership roles.
“RAIN Selling: Foundations of Consultative Selling” is a course offered by the RAIN Group to improve sales reps’ consultative selling skills. This program details strategies and tactics that your sales team can employ to improve their sales success rates.
The RAIN Group takes a modular approach to consultative selling skill development. With more than 70 different modular blocks, you can assemble an ideal custom curriculum that suits your team’s and your company’s individual needs. It’s simple to cater the content and tools to your specific training goals.
Each modular block contains a single topic. The topic is broken down into pre-work, a classroom-style session, assignments that let users apply their skills, and proper application coaching. This structure ensures thorough retention and lasting results.
“Dale Carnegie Sales Training: Winning with Relationship Selling” is an online course that emphasizes the value of relationship building in sales. The Dale Carnegie methodology asserts that approaching clients with the right attitude and focusing on their success ensures your success. This is a course that aims to help sales reps build genuine connections based on mutual trust and respect.
Course objectives include:
Learning how to demonstrate and create sales strategies that utilize relationship-oriented techniques
Compiling a playbook of which methods will best establish a connection with customers that builds trust
Coming up with collaborative solutions for customer goals
Learning how to close deals and encourage repeat business with your customers
Score More Sales provides leadership training with its online sales leaders coaching program. This course consists of six 90-minute calls (scheduled weekly or bi-weekly), with a focus on helping leaders implement a sales coaching program with revenue benchmarks. Score More Sales works with SaaS, technology, manufacturing, distribution, and financial services companies, among others.
Score More Sales aims to help leaders identify the reasons their current selling techniques might be underperforming, and then to course correct and fix those mistakes.
The company offers a selection of courses, including:
SheSells, a program that focuses on promoting and assisting women in business
SellForward, a strategy-based program that helps discover individual solutions to improve performance
SalesHero, a coaching program that establishes exactly what it takes to successfully guide a sales team
Sales training topics to create your own sales training
If you’re looking to develop your own sales training topics, you’ll want to first identify your personal business goals. Below are some great starting topics to build a foundation for exceptional selling.
Product knowledge
How can your product sell if your team doesn’t have a thorough understanding of what it offers? Quite simply, it won’t. Having sales reps who know your product inside and out is absolutely essential to sales success.
Fundamentally, product knowledge training needs to lay out:
How your product works
The features that make it special
Competing products (and why your product is superior)
Sales reps have to be ready to navigate customer doubts and objections. Sales can slip away if your team gets thrown by a tough question that catches them off guard. The key to training sales professionals to handle these situations is preparedness.
Notice trends in sales that didn’t work out for you. What sorts of things are turning customers off or creating a hesitancy to buy? If, for instance, it’s your price point, consider equipping your team with the knowledge of comparable products and why your product is superior. You could also have statistics and data at the ready that indicate how much money this investment might save your customer over time.
Practicing these challenging scenarios with your sales team will ensure they’re less flustered and more equipped with tactics to move past a roadblock and toward a sale.
Intelligent listening skills
Teaching your sales reps to listen well is just as important as teaching them to speak well. Paying close attention to what your prospective customers say and feel during a sales conversation can uncover the secret to making that sale. And baseline? Customers want to feel heard. Come up with leading questions to learn more about customer goals and emphasize flexible tactics that can be adapted to every individual customer interaction.
You could run training exercises where team members pick out important information within a casual conversation transcript from a customer. Did they notice the prospect’s pain points? Do they have ideas on how to navigate them? You might also pair up team members and have them run scenarios with each other. The more practice your team gets, the more they’ll be capable and confident when handling the real thing.
Practiced pitches and closing sales
Your team should have their sales pitches and presentations down pat before interacting with customers. You want to train your team to be clear, engaging, and concise. They should also be confident when highlighting key benefits and emphasizing exactly what sets your product apart.
Ultimately, all sales training has an eye on closing sales consistently. When all the pieces are in place, you want to ensure your representatives can seal the deal. Great closing techniques not only drive revenue, but also plant the seeds for meaningful professional relationships. Customers who had a great experience with your business will return again and again, ensuring a successful (and profitable) future for your company.
Meanwhile, consider how a CRM like Zendesk Sell can help you gauge sales rep success and identify weak points that can be remedied through sales training. Request a demo of Sell today to experience how a powerful CRM can help you up-level your sales team and prepare it for success.
Improve your sales process
A good sales process is the foundation of any successful sales organization. Learn how to improve your sales process and close more deals.
