With so much competition, companies are always looking to enhance their sales performance and strengthen client relationships. Companies typically use two key avenues to enhance sales performance and enable clients to be more successful—B2B sales consulting and sales training. Sales consulting and sales training sentences sound similar, but they are not the same thing and vary in what they’ll provide. Knowing the difference is very important when deciding your best path forward.
What is Sales Training?
Sales training usually is a structured program that teaches sales professionals the skills, strategies and behaviours they need to be successful. Typically, training covers:
- Prospecting
- Building rapport with clients
- Negotiating
- Closing
The sessions could range a few days to a few weeks and are intended to improve short-term performance and boost confidence.
What Is B2B Sales Consulting?
B2B sales consulting is a more strategic, longer term engagement. Rather than just developing individual skills, consultants will look at the whole sales ecosystem within the business including:
- Sales processes and systems
- Team structures and alignment
- KPIs and follow-up
- Market segmentation and client identification
Consultants will work with leadership teams to expose bottlenecks, misalignments or gaps in the sales process. The intention of B2B sales consulting is not just to optimise how sales people sell, but how the organisation enables sales people to sell.
Key Differences: Training versus Consulting
- Scope: Training is focused on skills; consulting is focused on strategy.
- Duration: Training is short-term; consulting takes months.
- Approach: Training is instructional; consulting is diagnostic and advisory.
- Customisation: Training may be generic; consulting is very specific to the business.
- Outcomes: Training may spike short-term performance, consulting changes the system for long-term sustained growth.
Do We Need Sales Training or Sales Consulting?
If your team does not have basic selling skills or you’ve recently hired people, training may be the best option to start developing the sales culture. However, if your sales are flat with top-tier reps, or if you are opening new markets, then you’d be better off with consulting.
In many cases, companies find value in both training and consulting. That’s where a subject matter expert like DimenZion3 can help. With their years of leading performance enablement and cultural transformation, DimenZion3 develops scalable, actionable training modules with underlying strategic B2B sales consulting modules that can and do move the needle.
Both sales training and B2B sales consulting are valued methods of modern sales development, but they are not interchangeable. By understanding the legitimate differences between them, organizations are in a better position to maximize the benefits from each in a considered way that produces successful outcomes for achieving long-term sales goals.
With the support of a consultant like DimenZion3, businesses can increase sales performance, while not only building high-performing teams but also and most importantly develop a high-performing sales culture.
