Sales reps and managers are liaisons between your brand, your CPG products, and the retail places that sell them. We can’t therefore overstate the importance of sales education for your CPG sales team, because without sales you have no business. And growth is critical for your CPG business as the market shifts and shimmies around new economic challenges.
Educating your sales team provides you with a way to answer the challenge of cost increases, supply shortages, and fierce competition.
In addition, your sales department needs a roadmap that includes a strategy, a process, the right people, and possibly some partnerships wisely chosen. The importance of educating your sales team is because it helps your reps abide by the “strategy” and “process” strands of the roadmap on a day-to-day basis.
The Importance of Sales Education: Three Outcomes
1 Improved Sales Skill
Effective selling uses different skills strategically to achieve a goal. But it’s not once-and-done learning. A rep needs to both refresh and learn new skills to become more efficient as that brand<>retail liaison person in your business.
Sales education therefore improves:
Effective communication skills. This applies firstly within your team so they can work well together around the common goal.
Empathy skills. Prospects may be direct online customers, partners, or store personnel. Either way, the most successful rep is empathetic in order to
- feel their pain points,
- show understanding, and
- forge a way forward that benefits both you and them.
Problem-solving skills. Every sale is about solving the problem the prospect has, and this skill will demonstrate to your prospect that your rep is intent on doing that, which engenders a continued relationship until close of sale.
2 Strengthened Organization
Educating your sales team prepares the team for success. So, education sessions are motivating and morale boosting and help your reps perform the job more efficiently. Less off-piste activity and more focus on pursuing appropriate leads! Your team’s sales education program will help them stay on track. This gives you your competitive edge.
The reps will
- Close more deals. Learn how to engage the right customers who will more likely follow through to a closed deal.
- Become more productive. Learn how to be efficient, increase work quality, and waste fewer resources of time and money
3 New Ideas and Innovation Come From Sales Education
Educating your sales team is important because it can be a breeding ground where your reps gain the confidence to innovate. That’s because they’re at the face of things, and can see where an idea might work well.
After all, innovation is often simply taking an old idea in a new direction and applying it!
Reps with the confidence to think outside the box can therefore help you to become a disruptor – a pioneer of change. That’s what happened with both D2C growth and the arrival of niche CPG products that cater to people’s values. What might be next?
The takeaway? The way you educate your CPG sales team can directly impact your revenue down the line.
Should You Invest in Sales Education?
YES! Investing in professional education for your sales teams – and running sales education for managers, too – can seem expensive. But it translates into the fruitful outcomes we’ve listed above.
In addition, career development opportunities are a priority for many younger sales reps today. So your established sales education program provides part of that career development for them.
If you’re ready to focus on the importance of sales education and take your business to the next level, contact us today and let’s talk! You don’t have to go it alone.