The Best Sales Prospecting Training Courses

The best professionals in the world engage in a lifestyle of learning. 

For sales reps, continuous learning is key to long-term success. 

Because the truth is, while human nature and psychology don’t change, the trends in sales do. 

You don’t have to look any further than 2020 to see how true that is. Within three months, over 90% of the U.S. was working from home. Our worlds went online. 

While there’s been a return to the office and more in-person contexts, the giant COVID-sized wrecking ball absolutely did its damage. Sales reps have had to learn all kinds of new virtual skills to keep nurturing leads and sealing deals.

This is one illustration, but the truth is things change all of the time. Reps have to be constantly sharpening their skills to keep up.

One of the core skills they need to refine is prospecting.

The best sales prospecting training courses will not just teach tips or tricks, but go deeper into strategies, mindsets, and then tools that equip sales reps for long-term success.

Sales Prospecting Training Course Options

Here are three of the top-rated sales prospecting training courses:

RAIN Sales Prospecting

The RAIN Group is a sales training company. They believe that sales prospecting is the aspect of sales that has changed most over the past decade. Their training covers some of the common dynamics in prospecting: buyers want reps to be proactive and they want to talk early in the sales process when they’re still gathering ideas. They have also found that as many as 58% of sales meetings aren’t valuable to buyers. Sales prospecting is presented in eight modules which are very tactically driven, teaching reps how to use phone, voicemail, video, social media, and more.

Richardson Sales Prospecting

Richardson Sales Performance is another sales training company that uses what they call an “agile approach.” This approach has three big picture components: targeting, messaging, and engaging. The Sprint Prospecting™ Framework prioritizes adaptation as a rep’s core skill, understanding how to move forward through various sprints to achieve original objectives.

ASLAN Access™: Sales Prospecting Training Course

RAIN Sales Prospecting claims that “buyers want to talk to you,” you being reps. That is a key difference between their approach and the approach we take at ASLAN. In fact, we think that most of the world is unreceptive. People are inherently resistant to sales reps and they don’t want to have a conversation. 

Richardson has solid ideas for assessing what customer’s value most. We have a bit of a different starting line, working from the vantage that what reps need the most help with is gaining access. They can’t be agile if they don’t score a meeting. So that’s where we begin.

The ASLAN sales prospecting course is called Access™. We don’t schill magic bullets or sales gimmicks. We also don’t think reps should rely on technology to do the heavy lifting of prospecting for them.

They’re facing record-making failure rates and rejection in prospecting. They need to shift focus to being Other-Centered™. Great prospecting isn’t about the rep at all: it’s about how that rep uncovers the priorities of a prospect and can speak directly as an expert. It’s about getting reps to adopt a curious, servant mindset in which they let go of tension (Drop the Rope™) and have relevant and meaningful conversations. There is a myriad of skills in play to pull that off, and we teach them all.

Best Sales Prospecting Skills

While our approach does begin with mindset, there are some programmatic elements that can and should be trained. Here are the best sales prospecting skills that reps should learn in any training program or course.

1. Prospecting Strategy

We believe that decision-makers have changed. There is less delegation, more hurdles for approval, and people are inundated with calls and emails. Many upper-level executives straight up “don’t meet with sales people.” 

All of this means the prospecting strategy has to shift.

There are a few ways reps can gain access even in this new normal.

Unique Positioning Strategy — We teach sales reps how to cut through the clutter by using a unique positioning strategy (UPS) that earns attention even from very busy, very important people.

Path to the Decision Maker — Do reps actually know how to carve a path to the person who can make a decision? To help them out, we teach a Relational Map. This helps them understand the exact path they have to take and how they’re going to get there.

Filter Prospects — The faster reps can apply relevant criteria to vet a prospect, the better. Volume is everywhere and speed is their superpower. They have to learn how to rank opportunities and ensure it’s the right territory to pursue.

Stay In — Reps have a hard time getting in. Once they’re in, they have to learn how to stay in. This is an account development process that occurs after prospecting has been successful.

2. Gain the Right Access

All-important access is achieved when reps learn some real skills:

• How to determine who has real influence, not just who has a title
• How to navigate organizational barriers to access
• How to neutralize false objections in order to reduce resistance

These are abilities a rep can learn, practice, and refine over time.

They’re best deployed against a reliable roadmap.

3. Map all the Paths

Roadmaps help reps systematize the prospecting process. As they cycle through, they’ll fail or falter and get a little better and stronger.

We recommend they learn how to map a couple of things:

• Map the path to the decision maker
• Map the path through the relationship

By documenting what they’re doing and what it takes, it will reinforce vital concepts and practices that they can then rinse and repeat over and over.

Eventually, they’ll become masterful.

Find the Best Sales Prospecting Training Course

At ASLAN, we know that sales prospecting isn’t a one-and-done training. Reps learn it in different ways and the real-world application is imperative.

That’s one of the many reasons our sales training programs come “unique as standard.” For any organization, including yours, the skills it takes to win are context-driven. We’ll come in, do the right evaluation, connect with your leadership team, and devise and implement a plan that works.Your reps can’t afford to be bad at this for even a second. Connect with us to get started.