Sales Training Consulting

Every SaaS company serious about increasing their revenue must make sure their account executives receive regular sales training. This is oftentimes done through an outside sales training consultant. But are the training programs accomplishing everything they should? A study conducted by Training Industry magazine, the leading research and information resource for corporate learning leaders, asked employees to rate the quality of their company’s sales skills training program. The study found that 10.7% of the programs exceeded expectations, 42.5% met expectations, and 43.5% needed improvement. That last percentage — backed up by plenty of other research — should catch every sales executive’s attention. More than two out of five of their sales reps think their training isn’t working as well as it should.

Maybe the problem isn’t the training itself. It could be the fact that a lot of corporate sales training programs aren’t geared toward the way we sell today. Their sales training content isn’t specific to your business model, and their sales training methods aren’t geared toward your particular industry. In other words, they teach your team how to sell a product, but not necessarily how to sell your product. No wonder research reveals that more than 42% of sales reps report that they don’t have enough information before making a sales call. That’s because the training they are receiving isn’t preparing them for the job.

Your sales team is sending you a message. They are eager to get the kind of advanced sales training that will help them become better sellers. They want to have as many tools as possible at their disposal to help them close the deal. And they need playbooks that will help them be able to replicate what works in today’s market. What they don’t want is to feel like they are wasting valuable time. 

When you decide on sales training consulting, how do you choose between the many companies who are eager to sell you their services? Make sure they know your industry inside and out. If a consultant doesn’t focus on SaaS sales, that should be a red flag. A sales training consultant needs to understand the intricacies of the recurring revenue model. If they are still talking about the traditional sales funnel and the importance of closed-won, you might want to look elsewhere. That means they don’t understand that for SaaS companies, it’s building a long-term relationship with customers that really matters. 

Another thing to keep in mind: training should be an ongoing process. If the sales training consultant that you are considering only offers onboarding for new hires, or one-and-done classes for your more seasoned employees, then they probably don’t have what it takes to help your team reach its goals. The best sales training consultants see training as part of a process and offer a variety of courses that allow your employees to gain the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. And they follow up those courses with individualized training that lets them practice what they’ve learned.

Sales Training Consulting Firms

When you’re comparing the best sales training programs, take a look at Winning by Design. With a truly innovative approach to the recurring revenue model, we are one of the industry’s most highly rated sales training consulting firms. We offer a wide range of courses for your entire revenue team, including your Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success departments. For example, Prospecting for Impact lets you increase your customer connections with relevant and effective prospecting, while Prospecting Into Enterprise Accounts builds on this knowledge and adds account-based prospecting strategies. There are also courses designed for frontline managers and executives. Managing for Leadership, for instance, focuses on how to apply key metrics, skills development, coaching cadences, and call scorecards to empower teams and drive sales. Revenue Architecture explains the principles of recurring revenue and how to apply them to your business.

In addition to these and many other open courses offered through our Revenue Academy, we also have private classes for eight or more people with curriculums that are carefully tailored to reflect your own business model. There’s also coaching to help reinforce what your team learned in the training sessions. With all these options at your disposal, your team will learn how to ask the right questions, engage in more impactful conversations, and truly connect with customers. Your sales training process will benefit in ways you never thought possible.

But what makes Winning by Design one of the best companies for sales training is the types of services we offer. We have Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success Services that help you uncover gaps in your processes, attract your ideal customers, and tap into growth opportunities within your existing customer base. We also have Private Equity, Growth Equity, and VC Services that allow you to unlock revenue potential across your portfolio with value creation solutions. And our Revenue Enablement Services permit you to implement and activate your methodologies and strategies directly into your tool stack and workflow.

Top Sales Training Programs

What are the best courses for sales professionals? Let’s leave that question to the experts. Training Industry’s list of the Top Sales Training Companies in 2022 places Winning by Design high on the list. Training Industry says companies made the cut for the breadth and quality of their program and service offerings, their visibility in the industry, and their impact on the sales training market. Jessica Schue, market research analyst at Training Industry, said companies made the list because they show a “readiness to adapt to their customers’ needs” and “help keep them up to date with new selling trends.” 

Our users also consider us one of the top sales training companies. The sheer number of online reviews speak for themselves. Winning by Design has earned more than 600 five-star reviews on G2 and have been ranked among the best in the following categories: Account Based Marketing Consulting, Sales Consulting, Sales Training, Customer Success Training, and Revenue Operations Services. In addition, we are among the b2b sales training programs that have been highly rated on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Sales Training. When it comes to the best sales training programs for SaaS companies, Winning by Design is hard to beat.

Toni Jones, an Account Manager at Anagram, said that growing sales quickly and effectively was the key to the startup company’s success. They turned to Winning by Design for the types of sales training programs it offers. She said the courses were valuable for their entire team, regardless of experience. “I have spent 25 years in sales,” she said. “One can only imagine how many sales courses that I have suffered through over the years — yes, suffered — because they provided minimal relevant impact. Our sessions with Winning by Design were on point. And most importantly, the insights were relevant to our business model. I left every session feeling rejuvenated and taking away something of enormous value to place in my sales tool belt.”

Consulting Sales

When it comes to B2B sales consulting companies, Winning by Design has built up quite a following. Rick Rabuck, a Sales Executive at Medius, signed up for training in Selling for Impact. “I liked everything about the course,” he said. “It teaches account executives the key skills they need to bring more impact to their customers. The modules show how to have more effective conversations, use best practices in discovery and demo, and orchestrate late-stage conversations to close. This course is often used as part of the onboarding program for sales reps who are new, but it’s also great for reps who want to hone their technique.”

Many sales consulting companies rely on tried-and-true sales methodologies. But Winning by Design backs up everything we do with our SPICED methodology that provides a common language across revenue teams. This means that departmental handoffs that used to be unmanageable — such as the one between Sales and Customer Success — are now smoother. With everyone on your team using the same methodology, you can finally make the most of the recurring revenue model.

Adam Young, Senior Team Lead for Client Success at Mindbridge, said that his team has seen the difference in their consulting sales process. “We are leveraging the SPICED model for our Account Executive to Customer Success handoff,” he said. “The training helped provide us with a framework around a lot of the tasks and activities we were already doing by instinct.”

Young added that he was thrilled to complete our Account Management course as well as our Customer Success. “Both of my experiences with Winning by Design on both the education front and services front have been nothing but professional, organized, and valuable,” he said. “When you are an educator in all things customer-facing, you really know how to nail down education and the customer journey. I look forward to working with them again. I will be running all of my Account Managers through their course as well.”

Many sales consulting companies promise more than they can deliver. But at Winning by Design, we don’t need to make promises. We can proudly point to our hundreds of satisfied customers.

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