You may be considering what you can do to further your career or make a shift as a sales professional navigating a historic period called #GreatReshuffle.
You could try a tactic that 4.6 million of your peers took to grow their skills—take one of the Most Popular Courses of the year.
The most popular sales courses include those that can help you hit your targets, such as Speaking Confidently and Effectively or Delivering and Authentic Elevator Pitch when the quarter is stalling, as well as those that can help sales professionals advance their careers, like Strategic Thinking and Unconscious Bias.
These courses can help you develop the skills you need to advance your sales career as the world begins to reopen and we enter the Great Reshuffle.
The 10 Most Popular Courses for Sales Pros in 2021
1. Strategic Thinking with Dorie Clark
What you’ll learn: As you work to ascend any company ladder, thinking on big and small scales today and with the future in mind, is essential. This course teaches managers and leaders how to use strategic thinking to guide teams and develop solutions to key business problems. Follow Dorie Clark as she shares ways to carve out time to gather data, review past decisions, create a vision for the future, and implement strategic thinking within your team.
2. Unconscious Bias with Stacey Gordon
What you’ll learn: Our unperceived biases and past experiences can have a negative effect on how we communicate with others, or perform our jobs, and can even impact overall productivity in the workplace. Join diversity expert Stacey Gordon to identify some of the most common forms bias can take, and uncover strategies for identifying and overcoming those personal or even organizational biases.
3. Speaking Confidently & Effectively with Pete Mockaitis
What you’ll learn: As a sales pro, you need to respond confidently and effectively to every objection, question, or concern. Adapted from the podcast How to Be Awesome at Your Job, Pete Mockaitis hosts professional speaker Diane DiResta to help you learn how to give your audience what they need to know — not everything you know. Discover ways to control your focus, ensure consistency in your delivery, and establish recovery methods in the face of difficult situations.
4. Excel Essential Training with Dennis Taylor
What you’ll learn: Across companies and industries worldwide, Excel is an organizational lynchpin for managing, calculating, and analyzing data. Excel often helps sales pros stay organized and on top of their pipeline. The more knowledgeable you are in it, the more valuable and efficient you’ll be. Excel expert Dennis Taylor helps accelerate your learning curve in functions like PivotTables and chart building. You’ll discover techniques to navigate multiple worksheets, and formatting shortcuts across the platform to help save time.
5. Delivering an Authentic Elevator Pitch with Tatiana Kolovou
What you’ll learn: Find out how to craft an authentic personal pitch while projecting competence and warmth—two key factors in making a great first impression. Instructor Tatiana Kolovou shares how building trust with people and making a positive first impression isn’t a matter of magic. Tatiana reveals how verbal and nonverbal behaviors can influence the way people react in an initial meeting, whether in person, over the phone, or online.
6. Learning Personal Branding with Chelsea Krost
What you’ll learn: Any sales pro can benefit from a refresher on how to develop your story, craft your messaging, and define your audience. Marketing expert, Chelsea Krost, walks you through building your brand presence online and off, creating a calendar that will help you stay on top of social media and keep your content fresh. Plus, get tips to monetize your personal brand and land speaking engagements and guest roles.
7. Communicating with Confidence with Jeff Ansell
What you’ll learn: Sometimes you really feel like you can land a message with a prospect, and sometimes we have to work a bit harder at it. Nail the call either way by honing your communication skills. In this course, you’ll learn how to organize your thoughts, breathe properly, use your body and words to express ideas, and understand how to overcome anxiety.
8. Executive Presence on Video Conference Calls with Jessica Chen
What you’ll learn: It looks like much of sales will continue to be virtual for the foreseen future. Communication consultant Jessica Chen provides expert advice to look and sound confident, collected, and smart on your next conference call or video presentation. Discover how to prepare your material, how to contribute to the call, and how to incorporate engaging visuals. Get body language, posture, and wardrobe tips to make a powerful impression. Finally, learn the technical details to building a mini “studio” for conducting calls, including choosing a webcam, lighting yourself, and placing a microphone for quality sound.
9. Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging with Pat Wadors
What you’ll learn: The sales organization is a unique branch of the organization driving the majority of revenue and many of the interactions with internal clients. Generating diversity, inclusion, and belonging on the team can help drive more positive outcomes. Join HR luminary Pat Wadors as she explains how to drive the conversation on DIBs, hire and retain diverse talent, listen to employees, and integrate DIBs into your employee life cycle. Managers and executives should tune in for special tips on embedding DIBs in the employee experience.
10. Online Marketing Foundations with Brad Batesole
What you’ll learn: More often than not, sales pros are expected to leverage marketing materials and work with marketing partners to move prospects through the funnel. Learn how to promote your business effectively online and develop a targeted online marketing strategy that engages potential customers throughout the digital landscape. In this course, Brad Batesole explains today’s digital marketing techniques in simple terms, demonstrating how to build a successful online marketing campaign for all digital channels: search, video, social, email, and display.
The very fundamentals of work as we know it are changing. Upgrading and adapting your skill set now can help enhance your value in your current role, bring added value to your organization, and set you up for the next step in your career.