Sales training is the process of helping sales professionals improve their selling skills, techniques and processes. Some benefits of well-implemented sales training courses include better sales team onboarding, streamlined sales processes, higher quality leads, better customer relationships, improved customer retention and increased revenue for the business.
Despite the name, you don’t need to be a sales professional to benefit from a sales course. Sales training and selling skills are applicable across all client-facing roles. We’ve rounded up some of the best sales training courses on the internet so you can choose the best free sales course or paid sales certification course for your needs.
#1: [FREE] HubSpot Academy: Inbound Sales
HubSpot Academy’s free sales course focuses on strategies and techniques to close inbound sales. Inbound sales is when a potential customer reaches out to the business to talk about a product or service.
This is a sales certification course aimed at beginners. It teaches learners how to identify and segment interested prospects, reach out and develop a connection with promising leads, conduct effective sales calls and presentations and finally, explore the needs of clients in order to advise them on the best path forward.
The course contents include self-paced videos and quizzes which take approximately 2 hours to complete. Upon completion of the sales course, learners will receive a HubSpot certificate and completion badge they can display on their LinkedIn.
Explore Inbound Sales on HubSpot Academy.
#2: [FREE] HubSpot Academy: Sales Management Training
Another free sales course by HubSpot Academy, this is an intermediate-level course which focuses on teaching sales managers how to lead a team. Since most sales managers are often former salespeople who have been promoted, they often have great selling skills but lack the knowledge to implement sales training and policies.
HubSpot Academy’s Sales Management Training course focuses on big-picture strategies to help new sales managers better engage their sales teams and drive better performance. Course topics include how to define a sales strategy and communicate it effectively, how to create a sales training, coaching and onboarding programme as well as how to hire and recruit for sales.
The course takes approximately 3 hours to complete and is taught via online videos as well as quizzes after every chapter. Upon completion of the sales course, learners will receive a HubSpot certificate and completion badge they can display on their LinkedIn.
Explore Sales Management Training on HubSpot Academy.
#3: [$29/mth] GoSkills: Online Sales Course
GoSkill’s Online Sales Course costs a monthly subscription of $29/mth to access, but it is one of the most comprehensive beginner-level courses for the money. Rated 5 stars with 200 reviews, this is an accredited sales certification course that covers the entire sales process.
Designed to turn anyone with no experience into a high-performing sales professional, GoSkills sales training covers setting yourself up with the right attitude for sales, understanding psychology to connect with clients, proven sales techniques and scripts as well as best strategies for following up with prospects and closing sales.
The course content includes 31 lessons consisting of videos, practical tutorials, tests and quizzes. The estimated study time for all materials is 15 hours and 30 minutes. Learners will receive a certificate of completion once they finish the course.
Explore Online Sales Course on GoSkills.
#4: [$39.99/mth] Coursera: Mastering the Selling Process
Rated 4.8 stars with over 1,000 reviews, Mastering the Selling Process is one of Coursera’s most popular sales training courses. This is a Coursera specialisation, which means it is a series of courses designed to help learners master a skill.
Access costs a subscription fee of $39.99/mth, and for that, you get 4 courses:
- Customer Segmentation and Prospecting
- Connecting with Sales Prospects
- Sales Pitch and Closing
- Building a Toolkit for Your Sales Process
Developed by Northwestern University in the USA, the course contents cover the entire sales process from start to finish and includes videos, reading materials, practice quizzes and graded assignments. This is a sales certification course that is ideal for beginners who want to learn in a well-structured and organised manner.
It is extremely comprehensive and takes approximately 4 months to complete at a pace of 3 hours per week. Despite the long course duration, it is conducted 100% online with a flexible schedule, so learners can accelerate or slow down their learning as they see fit.
Explore Mastering the Selling Process on Coursera.
#5: [$39.99/mth] Coursera: Successful Negotiation Strategies and Skills
Our next Coursera course on this list, Successful Negotiation Strategies and Skills has 4.7 stars with over 4,000 reviews — making it one of the most successful and highly-rated sales training courses on the platform.
Negotiation is an invaluable skill in the sales toolkit and can be the difference between hitting or missing your sales targets. Successful Negotiation Strategies and Skills teaches and gives learners the opportunity to practice the 4 steps that make up a successful negotiation. This includes preparing a negotiation strategy, key tactics for success, creating a contract when closing negotiations as well as evaluation.
Course contents include videos, reading materials, a practical negotiation module as well as a final exam. In total, the course takes approximately 17 hours to complete and learners will have the option to earn a course certificate upon completion.
Explore Successful Negotiation Strategies and Skills on Coursera.
#6: [$39.99/mth] LinkedIn Learning: Cold Calling Mastery
Cold Calling Mastery on LinkedIn Learning teaches learners how to get over the fear of cold calling and overcome objections on the phone. If you’re in a role that pursues leads on the phone, this is one of the best sales training courses to increase your success rate.
Rated 4.7 stars with over 1,000 reviews, the Cold Calling Mastery sales certification course focuses on helping learners develop a positive mindset for cold calling as well as practical tips and tricks to achieve sales.
Course contents include cold-calling techniques, how to overcome the fear of cold calling, how to develop the right mindset for cold calling, how to prepare phone pitches as well as how to overcome gatekeepers and rejections. Lessons are taught via self-paced videos and there are quizzes at the end of every chapter to ensure learners have absorbed the material.
The sales course takes approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete and learners will receive a LinkedIn certificate upon completion.
Explore Cold Calling Mastery on LinkedIn Learning.
#7: [$47.98] Udemy: B2B Sales Masterclass
B2B Sales Masterclass on Udemy is an intermediate-level sales certification course that focuses on teaching learners how to successfully sell to a prospect once they’re in the door. The original price of the course is $48, but you can grab it while it’s on discount for as low as $12.98.
B2B Sales Masterclass is rated 4.7 stars with over 2,000 reviews, making it one of the most successful sales training courses on Udemy’s platform. While it is titled B2B, some students have commented that they’ve found the contents to be applicable to B2C sales as well.
Since this is an intermediate-level course, it assumes that learners already understand the typical sales cycle and sales terminology. Course contents cover how to understand the prospect and problems they want to solve, how to execute discovery calls, how to perfect your pitch, how to use methods of influence to lead your prospect, how to get customer buy-in as well as techniques to handle common objections or deflections.
Lessons are taught via a mixture of videos, reading materials and end-of-chapter exercises. The course takes approximately 3 hours to complete and learners will receive a certificate upon completion.
Explore B2B Sales Masterclass on Udemy.
#8: [$240] FirstCom Academy: Effective Selling Skills
FirstCom Academy’s Effective Selling Skills is a WSQ-certified and SkillsFuture Credit-eligible sales certification course ideal for professionals in sales or client-facing roles in Singapore. The original course fee is $800 but can be subsidised up to 70% to be as low as $240.
Out of all the sales training courses on this list, FirstCom Academy stands out as their sales training is conducted in-person, which gives learners the opportunity to practice techniques and get real-time feedback to hone their selling skills.
Learners will understand the psychology behind buying motivations, learn how to develop the right mindset for sales, gain a thorough understanding of the sales process and get practice sales techniques to develop their selling skills and confidence to increase sales performance.
The course takes 2 days, and you’ll obtain a FirstCom Academy Certificate of Completion and SkillsFuture WSQ Statement of Attainment upon passing the final assessment. As the course is under the National Infocomm Competency Framework, you’ll receive a certification that can help you secure interviews for future roles and greatly boost your earning potential!
Explore Effective Selling Skills by FirstCom Academy.
How to Tell Which Sales Training Program Will Serve Your Team Best?
If you’ve gone through all of the 8 sales training certification courses in this article, you might be wondering which will suit you or your team best.
To find out if any of the sales training courses we’ve covered are right for you, ask yourself these questions:
- Is the course conducted online or in person? Can you or your team benefit from practising sales techniques and receiving feedback from a sales trainer in real time?
- Does the course meet your budget? Are there any subsidies or payment plans to help you or your team afford the training?
- Is the course content relevant to your sales process? Will you be learning techniques that you can use in your day-to-day role?
- Does the sales training address challenges you or your team are facing?
- Is the course content relevant to your sales area? Does the trainer or course provider have experience with customers in your country or industry?
Is It Worth Paying for Sales Training Course and Certification?
With the easy availability of free sales training courses. Is it worth paying for a sales course in order to obtain a sales certification?
In general, paid courses are valuable because they can cut through the noise and provide you with a structured and organised way to learn, saving you a great amount of time. Their content also tends to be of higher quality as they may be vetted or created by industry experts.
That said, whether paid or free — the quality of online courses can vary greatly. Before you enroll in a paid online course, take time to research learner reviews and the syllabus to ensure that it is relevant to you!
While online courses can be a convenient way to learn selling skills at your own time, one of the downsides of online learning is that the course contents may not be relevant to Singapore.
That’s why it’s always best to obtain a certification from a local SkillsFuture course provider vetted by government initiatives like WSQ SkillsFuture. This way, you can be sure that you’re receiving practical, applicable knowledge you can put to work immediately, as well as a recognised certification that will be useful for advancing your career.
Read also:
- 10 Sales Lessons You Can Learn From World Cup Football
- How to Become a Top Sales Performer
- What is Sales Training and What are the Essential Selling Skills
