Sales Trainer Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a sales trainer. Feel free to use our sales trainer job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a sales trainer.
Who is a Sales Trainer?
A Sales trainer is also known as a Sales Specialist. Sales trainers are solely responsible for sales training, coaching, and offering support services; they achieve this by developing training courses for the sales team. A sales trainer collaborates with other staff and detects issues the employees are facing. A sales trainer maximizes the efficiency of employees through these organized training programs. A sales trainer must formulate learning resources or materials for each session, monitor performance, and after each session makes recommendations for enhancement. A sales trainer can perform his or her job effectively by working with salespeople or a sales team to detect issues they are facing and to increase their productivity. Sales trainers also train other staff outside of the sales department by grooming them at the point of their initial hire to build and develop their sales skills. They select, formulate and develop curriculum and other resources for training programs. They also aid in the recruitment and hiring process by helping in formulating job vacancy descriptions or job profiles.
The minimum qualification of a sales trainer is a high school diploma but a bachelor’s degree is always preferred. They have strong background skills in sales and marketing. They usually possess teaching or training experience in creating training materials.
Most companies invest in sales training because it is a profitable venture that takes the sales team outside the streets and modifies their behavior or sales technique. Most of these organizations ensure that they pick the right sales trainer; a sales trainer typically works in an office environment with the sales team but he or she may also be mandated to travel as the need arises. They usually work 40 hours per week but they can work for more hours if they are demanded. The sales trainer must be highly passionate about his or her job to motivate the sales. The sales team brings foot traffic to the organization and they must be effectively trained to achieve this
Sales Trainer Job Description
Below are the sales trainer job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a sales trainer job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
The followings are the duties and responsibilities of a sales trainer:
- Analyze the daily needs of the sales team
- Formulate training curricula and estimates the budgets needed to create it
- Evaluate training program effectiveness and adjust if necessary
- Formulate coaching components and knowledge articles to support the continuation of training and performance
- Contribute massively to teams success by demonstrating cooperation and collaboration while participating actively in a group or team environment
- Produce digital materials or resources (e.g videos and case studies)
- Maintain updated records of training materials or resources, curricula, and costs
- Bring new salespeople on board
- Monitor sales goals and results of the performance
- Collect feedback from trainees and managers about training courses
- Liaise with external trainers or industry professionals and also organizing of seminars
- Continue to develop quality new hires and continuation training programs or materials
- Provide leadership responsibility to mentor coach sales agent as needed or requested by leadership
- Build and sustain the relationship by utilizing the appropriate interpersonal skills and communication method to build a constructive relationship with customers, business units, service organizations, and other stakeholders to meet shared goals and objectives
- Participate actively in community-sponsored events and other outside opportunities to promote the club
- Give tours to potential members and enrolls them in the tour process
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Human Resource, Business Administration, Marketing, Finance, or a similar discipline
- 2-4 years past proven experience as a Sales Training Specialist, Corporate Sales Trainer, or a similar role
- Professional Certification in sales such as Certified Professional Sales Person(CPSP)
- Strong working knowledge of sales processes and how to practice it
- Familiarity with e-learning platforms
- Excellent presentation skills
- Great interpersonal and organizational skills
- Ability to multitask when necessary
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Ability to motivate the sales team to enhance their skills
- Outstanding coaching and sales skills
- Excellent time management and customer service skills
- Ability to design effective sales training programs
- Ability to measure an employee’s performance
- Strict attention to detail and a god eye for continuous improvement
- Solid business acumen and good work ethic
- Strong command of English language and interpersonal skills
Essential Skills
A sales trainer needs to possess the following skills and competencies to perform his or her duties successfully and they are:
- Credibility: A sales team look up to the sales trainer and sales training will not be successful if they don’t believe in their sales trainer. A sales professional is always on the look for insight that can make him successful and a good sales trainer should be able to provide that impact.
A sales trainer is expected to have a real-world experience on the job. They should be able to comprehend the challenges the team is facing and use their sales training skills to direct them. A sales team always wants to learn from someone who has experience in similar challenges they are facing because such a sales trainer can give them practical ways how to overcome their challenges.
- Trust and Reliability: trust is very essential for a sales trainer and it is the elder brother to credibility. The sales team must be able to connect very easily with the sales trainer to build trust. A sales trainer usually asks people to do something they have not done before; trainers need to provide a safe environment for people to brainstorm.
The sales team looks up to the sales trainer; they must be able to depend on the sales trainer for coaching and mentoring.
- Communication Skills: an effective sales trainer must be an excellent communicator. They need to make sure that participants are focused and engaged in the program. They must be able to pass a message across vividly that will not be misinterpreted. Most of what sales trainers do is communicate with the sales team; most of the aspect of the training focuses on communication. They must ensure that they interact with the sales team appropriately to bring about a tremendous result.
- Leadership Skills: As a sales trainer, you are responsible for hiring, mentoring, or coaching the sales team. It is paramount therefore that you have leadership skills to train others to succeed. You must have foresight as a leader to be able to direct or guide the salespeople.
In addition, you must also have an analytical mind to identify the challenges the team is facing and recommend solutions to them.
- Good Facilitators: Sales trainers must be good facilitators to engage the team in probing discussions so that the sales team can ask questions. This is the only way the sales trainer will be able to ascertain if the sales team is following the discussions. One of the ways to check the effectiveness of a sales training program is through a feedback mechanism; they must be able to make the sales team ask questions to make the discussions flow. They should be able to moderate discussions and draw out significant conclusions that will bring about tremendous growth in the organization. Great facilitation will draw out wonderful ideas and bring solutions to problems.
- Passion: Passion is a driving force for any responsibility and sales training is part of it. The best sales trainers exude passion in doing their work. They must show love for their responsibility or craft and they must be passionate about the success of those they train. This means that they will put extra vigor into their work and share their passion with others. Trainers that exhibit a high degree of passion while working to make sales the team also passionate because passion is highly contagious.
- Executive Coaching and Mentoring Skills: Sales trainers are experts in the field of salesmanship and they must know how to mentor other salespeople to be like them or better than them. To achieve this, sales trainers must understand the basics of mentoring. Mentoring has to do with guiding an individual on the path to follow to accomplish a goal or project. Mentoring is not restricted to giving instructions but giving a guide. Sales trainers must mentor the sales team in the right way by giving them guidance to follow.
- Teamwork: Sales trainers do not work independently they work closely with the sales team. Sales trainers must know how to collaborate with the sales team to effectively train them. Team spirit makes the sales team learn very fast and incredible.
How to Become a Sales Trainer
- Acquire a Bachelor’s Degree
The first step to becoming a sales trainer is to acquire a bachelor’s degree in Human resources, Business Administration, Marketing, or a related field. This offers you knowledge about sales and it gives you a wonderful foundation on what being a sales trainer is all about. Some employers can hire a high school diploma candidate as a sales trainer but the most preferred certificate is a bachelor’s degree. Acquiring a bachelor’s degree usually takes four years and it exposes you to the basics of training a team. For Instance, a degree in Human resources will give you the resources soon hire and make you develop leadership skills which are a requisite for a sales trainer.
- Enroll for a Master’s Degree
A sales trainer is a leadership position and enrolling for a master’s degree will give you a hedge above other job candidates. You can acquire a master’s degree in Master of Business Administration (MBA), M.S in Human Resources, and any other related field. This will help you to know more about managing a sales team.
- Enroll in Sales Training
It is only someone that has been trained that can train others; this implies that if you have not passed through sales training it will be very difficult for you to train others. An aspiring sales trainer should also get a mentor or a coach that will train you in the aspect of sales so that you can effectively train others. This mentor should be someone higher than you that has advanced in the field of sales training so that you can always go back to the person to ask questions when complicated issues spring up when you are training a team.
- Earn a promotion as a Sales Trainer
Most people that are sales trainers today started their careers as sales persons or salespeople. Most organizations promote individuals from salespeople to sales trainers. It is highly paramount that you work hard so that you can earn such a promotion. Work closely with the sales trainer you are learning from and gather enough skills to become a sales trainer.
- Acquire Certifications
As a sales trainer, you need to acquire certifications so that you can be an expert as a sales trainer. You should also acquire certifications to stand out in the job market. Sales training is a practical field and it needs someone that has practical skills as a sales trainer, not just theoretical knowledge. You can acquire the following certifications: Certified Inside Sales Professional (CISP) and Certified Professional Sales Person (CPSP).
- Build a Portfolio
As a Sales trainer, you can work in more than one organization mentoring the sales team. To attract potential employers, you need to build your portfolio. You can take pictures of your sales training session with the sales team and post them on social media for job recruiters to see. You can also make a short video about the importance of sales training and why companies should adopt it. This video is your selling point and you can post this video on social media.
Where Can Sales Trainer Work?
Most organization’s today that sell services or products have a sales team; the sales team is highly relevant to bringing foot traffic to the organization. This job is highly lucrative and sought after by most employers. A sales trainer can work in the following places:
- Companies
- Firms
- Banks
- Retail store
- Government agencies
- Businesses
Sales Trainer Salary
- In the United States, a sales trainer earns an average salary of $65,404. Salaries from $57,055 to $77,309. This salary may vary based on the experience and location of the sales trainer.
- In Nigeria, a sales trainer earns 385,000 NGN per month. Salaries from 77,000 NGN (lowest) to 611,000 NGN (highest). The salary includes other benefits such as housing, transport, and other benefits.