Product Training vs Sales Training

To train on product or to train in sales, that is the question. You certainly need to know your product offering, but what’s the point if you can’t sell your product? You need to know how to sell, but what’s the point if you don’t know what you are selling?

The reality is both are essential to your success in sales. The further troubling reality is most companies mistake product training for sales training. They believe that their product or service is what you sell. So most, if not all, product training focuses solely on all of the features and technical merits. 

When you sell features, technical specs, etc., you become the same as all of the competition. Now you’re competing, rather than dominating by solving problems, fulfilling needs and delivering value. This is where high quality sales training needs to be implemented.

Sales training, or sales development, is designed to teach salespeople the necessary competencies and skills necessary to uncover needs and deliver value-based solutions. Features are not solutions. They are not value. Features contribute to an overall solution and fulfillment of needs. The value is “what’s in it for them” when the customer or prospect says YES.

Product and Sales Training are both important. You need both. They are not the same, and they serve different purposes. Don’t accept only one. Demand both.

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