Back-to-School Supplies: 5 Sales Training Materials to Move Your Sales Reps to the Head of the Class

September is rapidly approaching, which means one thing: School is officially back in session. Begrudgingly, many students are hitting the books and brushing up on calculus, economics, or world history — and they’re very likely doing so while dusting off the cobwebs that developed over the course of a long summer.

For many salespeople, that feeling should be familiar.

After all, summer is typically a slow sales period, and salespeople often use that time to take much-deserved vacations or focus on other activities. That’s great — but with little more than one quarter left to hit your annual goals, the pressure is now officially on to perform.

So, are you ready to shift gears and step on the gas?

If you’re feeling a little rusty, don’t fret. Below, we’ll provide five sales “courses” that will help you sharpen your sales skills and ensure that you’re fully prepared to head into Q4 with the knowledge you need to head to the top of your company’s class.

	1) Proven Sales Scripts that Work For many salespeople, summer is a time to relax. Prospects are a little bit less accessible, there are fewer deals close, and a more lackadaisical approach to sales sets in. With Q4 rapidly approaching, however, it’s time to get back on track and make sure the messaging that you’re delivering to prospects is relevant, targeted, and impactful. OpenView’s Director of Sales and Marketing Support Devon McDonald has you covered with this post, sharing some very detailed and effective call, voicemail, and email scripts that are guaranteed to get your prospects’ attention.
	2) Introduction to Lead Qualifying Questions It may seem overly simple to suggest this, but the more you know about your prospects, the better your chances are of not only closing them, but of distinguishing between the ones are closeable in the first place and the ones that aren’t really worth your time. So, if you’ve lost touch with certain prospects over the summer or are beginning to call on new customers altogether, inside sales expert Mike Brooks highlights the five key things that you will want to uncover in order to decide whether they are worth pursuing.
	3) Objection Handling 101 If there’s one thing salespeople need to have down pat, it’s the art of handling objections. In this article, Inc. contributing writer Geoffrey James explores tactics for overcoming three common sales objections (like, “I can get it cheaper elsewhere”), while in this OpenView guest post, Mike Brooks tackles the granddaddy of them all — the “I want to think about it” stall.
	4) Building an Effective Lead Qualification Asset Package Scrambling to find all of the supporting content that you used to close deals in Q1? Or maybe that content is out of date now that your company has shifted its focus to a new target market segment? No worries. In this post, Devon McDonald highlights the seven staples of an effective lead qualification asset package, and provides tips for developing that content if you don’t have it already.
	5) Senior Thesis: Establishing a Model Day for Success Now that you’ve studied up on all of the best practices that will allow you to have a knockout Q4, it’s time to create a plan that will allow you to put that knowledge into action. Enter: The Model Day for Success in Sales. In this post, you’ll discover the proactive and reactive activities that you need to focus on every day, as well as the schedule you should follow to ensure that you get those tasks done.

Are You Ready to Excel?

The good news is that you have plenty of time to get yourself ready for the final months of the year. The bad news is that if you don’t put in the work, you might not be happy with your report card come December.

What have you done this summer to prepare yourself for the final push at the end of the year? Any tips for other salespeople who might be feeling a little rusty? We’d love to here from you in the comments section below!