The True Power of Confidence in Sales Reps
Did you know that more than 55% of salespeople report needing more essential skills and confidence to do their jobs efficiently? This isn’t because sales talent is unavailable. Instead, many organizations need the right sales tools, training, and resources available to their teams to instill confidence and support professional growth.
Rather than shuffling along with a team that can ‘just get the job done,’ the sales teams that excel are proactive in instilling confidence and offering opportunities to upskill. While most team leaders know this, it can be almost impossible to find the time to do this right and customize training for each team member so that they can upskill and build confidence exactly where they need it.
Instilling confidence in your sales team is undeniably essential to your bottom line. The AI-powered coaching platform you use to build that faith in your team is also. Here’s what you need to know.
Confidence is Contagious
When you have a sales team confident about their skills, training, and knowledge of your products/services and the value it brings to individual customers, your customers will notice. Not only does it come off much more professional than a salesperson that lacks confidence in their abilities, but that confidence is transferred to the customer. This means that, in turn, your customers are more confident about their decision to work with or purchase from you.
This concept has been studied for decades, with Neuroscience experts like Margaret Steward finding that self-confidence can ‘trick the mind’ of another person to build trust in what they’re being told. While your team’s selling won’t be a ‘trick,’ but rather a genuine display of the value you bring to the table, more confidence in the sale journey will ensure the customer is confident that your sales team knows what they need and has the solution to their problem.
Related: 4 Reasons Why You Need a Sales Enablement Platform
Removes Customer Doubts
In addition to your sales team transferring their confidence to your customers, that boost in faith in themselves also removes any lingering doubts they may have before purchasing. Customers are often very wary of the salespeople they encounter in their buyer journey: it’s reported that only 3% of Americans trust salespeople.
A team member that needs more confidence in their sales skills will show when it gets down to the wire, perhaps choking when the pressure to close the deal gets too intense. It’s also more likely that they won’t have the answers your customers need to move forward.
On the other hand, confident salespeople know what to say and do to convey the value of your products/services. They have the answers to common customer questions, understand their problems/needs, and can effectively communicate the ways your offers resolve those pain points.
More Belief in Themselves
Confidence is directly related to believing in oneself—but how does it connect to your company? In a few significant ways: more belief in themselves means more salespeople taking suitable risks, trusting themselves to make the right sales decision, and performing at a grander scale. Studies have even shown that those who believe in themselves are more successful in academic and job performance.
As the popular saying goes, if you can believe, you can achieve. A confident sales team that believes in its ability to reach and resonate with your customers will also make an unforgettable impression on your target audience.
More Belief in What They’re Selling
Likewise, confidence boosts your team’s belief in your products/services. A team member who doesn’t know the ins and outs of your brand’s offers isn’t likely to be passionate about it—let alone motivated to communicate how valuable it is. On the other hand, a salesperson with exclusive tools and resources backing their claims to customers is more likely to find meaning and purpose in what they do.
This is important for two reasons:
- About 70% of employees report finding their ‘sense of purpose’ at work, and
- 90% of them are willing to make less to ensure their work is more meaningful
It is essential to believe in what you do in sales because that belief shines through sales pitches to prospects and relationships with current customers. It indicates to consumers that your products/services are worth believing in and worth their purchase.
Less Fear and Anxiety
A reported 2 in 5 people are held back by the fear of failing. That means nearly half of people are holding themselves back from their maximum potential in their professional or personal lives because they’re afraid to make a mistake. The problem is that letting fear and anxiety control your team’s sales capabilities allows them to do ‘good enough’ rather than be the best they can be.
This is where confidence is the game changer because confident salespeople feel that way for a reason—they have the proper training and development, receive regular feedback and listen/act on it, and have access to helpful sales tools and resources.
In turn, team members have less fear and anxiety when nurturing prospects or closing sales deals because they know what to do. This means there are fewer uncertainties to fuel the fear and anxiety that usually hold them back.
Related: How to Win More Quality Sales Opportunities with the Right Sales Performance Platform
More Prepared for the Sale
Despite 75% of salespeople believing they were ‘spot-on’ in their sales delivery, 37% of prospects report receiving irrelevant sales information that doesn’t resolve their problems or relate to their needs. This is often due to a need for more preparation on the team member’s and employer’s side. Winging it in a pitch to prospects or nurturing a current customer relationship is unacceptable in sales. Customers can see right through a salesperson equipped with insight into who they are, what they need, and the products they have to meet those needs.
But how do you know if your team is adequately prepared to close the deal?
Fortunately, you know your team is adequately prepared when they display confidence in their sales abilities. Preparation is a crucial component of trust, instilling that faith in their skills by having everything they need in arms reach. And since a confident sales team is a prepared sales team, the chances for successfully closing the deal are significantly higher.
These sales preparations include researching their offers and the customer’s needs, knowing which offers will benefit which customer pain points, and anticipating objections so they can overcome them with supporting information.
Confident Employees Are Loyal Employees
In an age where talent shortages are plaguing many businesses and leaving important positions open and unfilled, there is no room for error in retaining employees and attracting more to your company. Employee confidence is a great way to keep your team members working for you and attract job seekers looking for a place that will foster their professional skills and development, happiness and well-being, and overall sales performance.
Research suggests that confident employees are more loyal, happy, and better performing. Indeed reports the following findings:
- 96% of workers are more likely to stay with a company when they’re confident in their roles and responsibilities
- 98% say they perform better at their jobs when they feel secure, and
- 94% cite being happier at and with their company when they feel more confident at work
What’s the Best Solution to Coaching Your Team Well and Making Them Better?
The best solution to effectively coaching your team and improving their self-confidence is a web-based AI software that trains verbal and non-verbal skills that are proven to elicit positive audience responses. The better prepared and trained your team is, the more confident they will be to close deals and build relationships with your target market.
Now, what’s needed in a partner that can help? Your partner should offer individual team members the ability to practice, get immediate feedback on many specific soft skills, and then practice again to see how they’ve improved.
Enter: Quantified.
The right sales enablement platform will offer this reinforcement built into the process and be accessible 24/7, with sales managers and coaches able to monitor rep participation. Quantified’s AI technology measures dozens of soft skills. As sales team members follow their training path, they can repeatedly practice specific skills with the AI, receiving instant feedback and reinforcing their skill with hands-on action that makes it all stick.