Becoming a top-performing seller doesn’t simply happen after accepting the role. It requires a drive to try new methods and learn from previous mistakes. Reps should be confident, adept at recognizing a buyer’s challenges, and quick on their feet—along with a long checklist of other sales skills that help them build relationships and close deals.
While every seller aspires to be a high performer, they can’t do it alone. They need thoughtful sales training and proactive coaching from their manager. Yet, all too often the urgency of the present—including deal pursuits, forecasting, and quarterly goals—gets in the way. This leaves sellers siloed to improve on their own, but they often lack knowing where to start, and have no clue about the most impactful skills to focus on.
Even for the leaders who do recognize the necessity of skill development, many trainings are often a blanketed “one-size-fits-all” approach instead of a focus on the individual, likely because the manager lacks necessary data. The complex combination of skills and competencies needed makes it difficult for managers and sellers to prioritize skill development and fit it into busy calendars.
How can sales, revenue, and go-to-market teams unlock the potential of each rep with individualized, scalable development plans?
Why sales competencies are a must-have
Every salesperson wants to be successful, but success cannot rely on intuition alone. While formal development plans are a start, high-level performance data will not reveal the root cause of a seller’s inefficiencies.
That’s why best–in-class teams focus on developing seller competencies, according to Forrester’s 2023 Planning Guide. In fact, improving the selling skills of reps was the top customer initiative, with more than 66% of respondents targeting it (Forrester).
Competencies are a piece of a much broader development puzzle, as every organization has different priorities and skill sets that elevate performance. Whether it’s prospecting, product knowledge, or negotiation, each stage of the sales cycle demands a different set of competencies to create an impactful buyer experience. By focusing on the exact competencies that set the great apart from the good within an organization, revenue teams are better equipped to transform every seller into a stronger performer.
Companies that measure competency improvement report a 6% higher win rate.
Source: Sales Enablement Pro
And the investment pays off. Companies that measure competency improvement report a 6% higher win rate, and when organizations effectively use data to improve their coaching efforts, they see 15% higher quota attainment rates (Sales Enablement Pro). Focusing on role-specific competencies can be a catalyst to raise the effectiveness of their revenue teams at scale. When sellers feel valued and can directly see their impact, they tend to stick around—leaving turnover rates low, and continuous growth within the organization high.
How to build and use a competency framework
Leaders—whether sales, revenue, or GTM—need to be aligned to create and coach a successful competency framework, often led by enablement teams. A strong competency framework can not only provide guidelines for sellers to better understand where to invest in learning that is most relevant to their current role, but it can pinpoint important characteristics that an individual may lack in their arsenal—better preparing them for future roles and opportunities as they develop.
When organizations effectively use data to improve their coaching efforts, they see 15% higher quota attainment rates.
Source: Sales Enablement Pro
By quickly identifying weaknesses versus strengths, managers and enablement leaders can then recommend the most relevant coursework and training in order to improve performance and fast-track the learning curve. That means no wasted time away from meeting with buyers, no guesswork on where a skill gap may lie, and no wasted investments on irrelevant coursework.
Organizations need a sales competency solution that not only streamlines, but amplifies, seller effectiveness.
Introducing Showpad Sales Competencies
Showpad Sales Competencies takes the guesswork out of development plans with actionable insight into the seller skills and behaviors that drive consistent team performance.
Showpad helps sales teams sharpen their impact by identifying which specific competencies drive performance for their individual business—and was recently named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™️: Sales Readiness Solutions, Q4 2023 report.
How to uplevel seller performance with Sales Competencies
Showpad Sales Competencies leverages an average taken from all sellers on the same team and a course average from the entire organization. It visualizes each rep’s skill level compared to the baseline, making it clear to leaders in what area and for which sellers they should focus on providing support.
Enablement teams can easily connect sales competencies with associated training materials in the existing Showpad library, making it much easier for sales leaders to recommend targeted training to improve on a specific competency. When reps review their competency scores, they can click to start the relevant training courses right away. Plus—Showpad recommends personalized course trainings to sellers linked to specific competencies based on areas for upskilling.
Showpad Sales Competences empowers sales and enablement leaders and sellers to uplevel performance in four key ways:
- Creates a baseline for seller readiness so managers can deliver targeted support to reps that need it most.
- Identifies the competencies that are linked to strong performance to help scale the behaviors that win deals across the entire team.
- Benchmarks team performance so reps can set measurable goals for improvement.
- Links competencies to course recommendations to direct reps on how to improve.
Learn more about how Showpad can help you upskill your team and turn sellers into your #1 differentiator.
