High Tech Sales Training

Therefore, effective High Tech Sales Training should always include an in depth look at the sale cycle, who has what role and what are the client centered deliverables of that role. This clarity of roles helps to ensure you are focusing on the most important aspects of what your team needs to know, how to execute it and what behaviors are essential in executing.

Here is one example.

We were asked by a technology provider to train their business development team. These people were responsible for getting demos of their product. The demo was then handed off to an SE and sales person who would do the demo and pray for results. Their technology was so strong they had conversions, but it was a labor intensive and cumbersome process. Their thinking was just let the client see it and they would love it.

When we worked with this client to design sales training and support, we fundamentally changed their process. We had them eliminate the word demo and had the Business Development team focus on the issues they could help with by job title. This altered their pre-call planning research and conversations and gave the sale person and SE a different base of conversation to start from. The impact was nearly a 300% improve in conversions and a reduction in no-show rates to the follow-up call they scheduled.

The sales training for the sales person and SE was then focused on digging into the issues the client wanted to address and creating a series of appropriate next steps built with the agreement of the client. And most importantly, it was based upon live case studies that were in play so that materials could be immediately applied to those real deals.

What are the classic errors in high tech sales training?

The number one failure of many training efforts in high tech is failure to clearly link the technology to specific job title business issue and understand how they help. The number 2 error is failure to understand and articulate (with real examples) how to develop and use credentials as a stepping stone into conversation. The third failure is over relying on the technology to develop a vision of what is possible with the client and not helping your SEs and sales people do this.