Sales is a Collaborative Effort

Modern sales professionals are faced with a constantly changing marketplace. Shifts in the economy, technology, and consumer demand require salespeople to be agile and adaptive. When your company provides professional sales training that focuses on collaboration, you can better help sales staff members succeed in the face of constant change.

Traditionally, sales has been a highly competitive field that rewards independent thinking and aggressive action. Professional sales training usually includes topics focusing on communication, technology, and persuasion but stays away from collaboration. When your staff members are faced with rapidly changing conditions, an independent sales environment can result in high stress and decreased productivity. Professional sales training that addresses collaboration can help your salespeople lean on each other and take advantage of the collective knowledge base.

In many companies, it can be difficult to overcome the aversion to collaboration. The first step in the process usually involves education. By letting your sales staff members know that you expect them to work together and educating them about the benefits of collaboration, you can pave the way for a shift in corporate culture. Your professional sales training should also include content that informs salespeople about the tools and procedures that will be used to support collaborative efforts.

The types of tools you use to create a collaborative sales effort will depend on the size and nature of your business. For larger companies or companies with dispersed teams, Internet-based meeting software can be a valuable investment. With tools like GoToMeeting, Skype, and WebEx, your team can hold video meetings even when some members are in different corners of the world. According to Forbes magazine, video can also be helpful in training new staff members. For more informal communication, consider instant message programs or internal project management software.

As you are designing an updated professional sales training curriculum, you must tackle different types of collaboration. The first type—and perhaps the hardest to accomplish—is collaboration between salespeople. In an ideal collaboration environment, your sales staff members will share information about market shifts, consumer expectations, and competitor strategies. When all of your employees have the same information, it makes it easier for them to succeed in their individual goals, and because sales staff members often face the same challenges, the collective wisdom of the group can make it easier to overcome problems. For sales professionals, some of the most valuable sales information is related to daily tasks.

Another type of sales collaboration happens between the sales department and other departments in your company. To sell effectively, your sales staff must be up to date on the latest product developments, marketing efforts, and business goals. Using your targeted technology options, you can arrange regular meetings between your sales team and other departments. In doing so, you can disseminate sales information to the whole group, allow questions, and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

To encourage more collaboration among your sales staff, you can provide updated professional sales training. By letting salespeople know that you are committed to collaboration, you can encourage them to work together to accomplish corporate goals.

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