Product knowledge is a crucial skill that all effective salespeople need to master. In order to successfully market a product or service, a salesperson must deliver the specifications of that product or service with intelligence and confidence. In order to bring salespeople up to speed with the latest company offerings, management and team leaders engage in product knowledge training sessions.
How can team leaders administer these training sessions effectively, boost retail credibility, and maintain high employee engagement? There are a few types of educational techniques that training administrators can incorporate into their product knowledge sessions. Using interactive activities, humanizing the customer, and collecting feedback are all effective tools to use in this type of training.
Hands-On Activities
A person can’t become skilled at something without learning and practicing it several times beforehand. Product knowledge training sessions should incorporate interactive, hands-on activities to encourage this practice. In addition, these activities help break up the monotony of lectures and PowerPoint slides. Incorporating roleplaying activities, simulations, games, and other techniques can provide opportunities for salespeople to test their product knowledge.
For example, a training leader can develop a speed game where a product’s picture is shown on a screen and employees compete to identify the product and list its specifications. Leaders can also pair salespeople together in roleplaying scenarios, in which one person is selling a product to the other. During role play, the salesperson can discuss the specifications of that product. This helps ingrain product knowledge into the brain during the learning process.
Define Customer Needs
Customers are more inclined to purchase a product they believe they need. Salespeople should connect the specifications of different products to the customer needs they could satisfy. Connecting each product to a need or set of needs can help with the memorization process. In addition, including these topics in your training will allow for smoother sales presentations during real world situations.
Consult With Marketing
Marketing professionals know the specifications of products better than most people in an office. This is because the entire field of marketing involves being able to highlight a product’s benefits and connecting those benefits to customers’ needs. It’s likely that the marketing department of the company has product knowledge materials that they can share with the sales team. These experts can help sales team leaders administer effective product knowledge training using these materials. Check with marketing before creating training materials to save time and generate ideas.
Provide Refresher Training
Even the most seasoned sales professionals will forget details about a product. Sometimes, these details could provide opportunities for effective sales pitches. In order to revive this information, as well as introduce new products, team leaders should hold refresher training at least once per year. This will help bring all salespeople to the same page in terms of selling current product.
Listen to Feedback
Every training session can improve for optimal education. After each training session they administer, sales team leaders should distribute an anonymous survey for participants to fill out. This survey can be online, on paper, or through another data collection system. With the results of these surveys, team leaders can identify areas of the session that worked and others that need improvement. This presents an opportunity to make the next training session even better.
To learn more about corporate sales training for your company’s team, visit Shapiro Negotiations today. We offer integrated and systematic sales training options to optimize your sales power, approach, and customer engagement to their highest potential.
Contact us today to schedule a training session for your company or team.
