A well-trained sales team can be the key to success. Like athletes preparing for a championship, sales professionals need expert training to reach their full potential and outperform the competition.

This article explores how effective sales training can transform your team from contenders into champions. We'll examine why traditional methods often fall short and how innovative approaches can propel your team to the top.

Just as a comprehensive athletic program covers conditioning, mental preparation, and strategy, modern sales training includes understanding customer needs, building relationships, and delivering real value. We'll highlight the elements of a winning sales training regimen and showcase its impact on revenue, customer satisfaction, and performance.

Whether your goal is to dominate your market, retain star performers, or recruit top talent, strategic training is your pathway to success. Discover how investing in your team's skills can turn your sales force into industry MVPs.

Since 1996, ASLAN has championed an "Other-Centered®" approach, prioritizing service and trust-building. Learn more here.

Revenue + Relationships: The Hallmark Of a Strong Sales Team

Your sales reps are the gateway to what keeps your business running: your customers. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to truly connect with your buyers, understand their needs, and pair them with the right solutions. 

An empowered, high-performing sales team can have a massive impact on your revenue and your bottom line, but it’s not all about how many sales they make (and they can make a lot!).

The real value of an effective sales team is in the trust and relationships they build with their customers. A good sales rep knows how to close a sale, but a great sales rep knows how to win the heart of your customer. They can anticipate the challenges they may face and devise solutions to get the sale past the finish line. How do they do this? By truly understanding customer success and needs and offering the perfect solution in a way that appeals to them.

It isn’t the product or service that drives revenue. It’s the relationship.

But that type of thinking isn't part of many rep's sales process. In fact, many sales training programs don't teach reps to do this at all.

The Missed Opportunities of Traditional Sales Training

Traditional sales training, which is often a generic and off-the-shelf program with little customization, often misses the mark. Here’s why:

• Over-concentration on "closing" sales strategies: Typical sales training courses places too much emphasis on making the sale and not enough on learning about the customer’s needs, hesitations, fears, frustrations, excitement, etc. They don’t typically focus on other critical sales skills like teaching reps how to engage an unreceptive customer, actively listen to their leads, and devise creative solutions that make them more of a partner and less of a “salesperson.” 

• Failing to address mindset shifts: For many, the sales process focuses on tactics instead of transformation. To be truly effective, your team needs training that challenges their preconceived notions, habits, and overall mindset toward selling.

• Lack of ongoing reinforcement: Training in isolation won’t yield lasting results—learning isn’t just something that happens once. But most sales training solutions lack the follow-through that’s so critical in long-term learning, comprehension, and application.

The ASLAN Difference: An Other-Centered® Sales Training Approach

So how can your organization transform your sales reps into the caliber of professional athletes? ASLAN’s core Other-Centered® approach focuses on the most common problem sales reps face in their sales process: customer receptivity. 

If the customer isn’t interested in what your reps have to say, it doesn’t really matter what they say at all. 

Here’s how we resolve this pain point for your sales reps:

• Prioritize the customer’s needs: If your reps are going to succeed, they need to be able to understand what your customers want and empathize with the challenges they face. We shift the sales process mindset from selling to serving the customer – reps need to make the decision to care and put the customer first.

• Build genuine trust and relationships: Customers don’t buy from your company. They buy from your sales rep. That’s why building an authentic relationship and connection is so important.

• Create real value with expertise: Other-Centered® Sellers outperform their peers by an average of 44%. How? Because they are trained by the best in the industry. Our sales trainers apply best practices and stay ahead of industry trends to deliver sales training that moves the needle.

ASLAN's Comprehensive Training Process

How does our sales training process work? Let’s get into the nitty-gritty details. We take a 3-step approach: 

1. Prepare

• Assess current competencies: We learn about your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and evaluate the team’s desire for change.
• Customize the program: We develop sales training programs tailored to each unique role (sales leaders, individual sales reps, account managers, etc.)  in your company.
• Build a sustainable plan: Company leaders are instrumental in cementing lasting change. We ensure you secure senior leadership buy-in by aligning with them on long-term goals and objectives.

2. Ignite

• Introducing key concepts like ACCESS®: Our material helps reframe how sales reps prospect, making it easier for them to connect and build relationships.
• Experience interactive workshops: Theory is well and good, but some of the most powerful learning happens by doing. Our training involves a great deal of creative simulations, active problem-solving, role-playing, and more so the reps can see the concepts in action.
• Self-evaluation and goal setting: We encourage reps to set real-time goals based on their strengths and areas for improvement. That way, we can tailor training and exercises to help them meet the sales skills they need.

3. Transform

• Provide ongoing coaching and support: We ensure sustainment by supporting your reps through multi-modal learning tools, like AI-powered apps, webinars, and digital lessons.
• Deliver reinforcement tools: Whether your reps want a mobile learning experience or short modules to review on their own time, we provide it.
• Foster lasting behavioral change: We certify and equip your frontline leaders so they can reinforce lasting change throughout the organization.

Proven Results That Speak for Themselves

In sales, talking will only get you so far.

Here’s how ASLAN walks the walk. These are just three success stories (of many) that exemplify what quality sales training can do for your company:

• Increase in revenue: Cox Business saw a 185% growth in revenue over three years after using ASLAN’s Other-Centered® program for three sales roles.
• Customer satisfaction: A national consumer services company reduced customer churn by 50% by training their reps with ASLAN.

• Heightened productivity: A financial services company increased employee productivity in their call center by 32%, and in individual sales reps as high as 75%, through ASLAN’s training.

Sales Training With A Lasting Competitive Advantage

When your Other-Centered® sales force is trained, you have a lasting competitive advantage in your organization. We differentiate your team through:

• Aligning with modern buyer expectations: Sales and buyer expectations have changed immensely over the last decade. We ensure your sales team understands these changes and knows how to evolve their techniques.
• Creating raving fan customers: How do you know your sales training is working? Your customers will notice—and will tell you about it. Plus, you will be able to reduce customer attrition across the board.
• Attracting and retaining top talent: Sales reps talk to their peers about the training and development support they receive at your organization. The best way to recruit more high-performing sales reps is with personal testimonials from your existing ones.

Is Your Sales Organization Ready for a Transformation?

If you’re looking to drive transformative change within your sales force and set your reps up with the sales skills they need for success, partner with ASLAN.

Contact us to learn more about our Other-Centered® approach to sales and how it can help your reps build trust and relationships with your customers to drive revenue. 

After all, an athlete can’t win a medal without a coach. The same goes for your sales reps.