Does Trauma Therapy based sales training work?

Not everyone knows this, however, as well as being experienced as a sales trainer and coach, I am also trained as a trauma facilitator. Being trained in trauma psychotherapy methods brought a unique and profound depth to my sales training through several dimensions, and I’d like to share what that means.

Deeper Understanding of Human Behaviour

A trauma psychotherapist has a deep comprehension of human behaviour and emotions, specifically in what causes negative emotional responses. This expertise ensures that my sales training can be tailored to the psychological processes of both the salesperson and the customer, making interactions more empathetic and effective, specifically in terms of creating sales processes that would maximise engagement with customers, reducing the chance of negative emotional responses, by changing how the salesperson interacts. Understanding why the customer makes a buying decision, which is specific to different products makes selling much more straightforward.

Enhanced Communication Skills

Effective therapy requires exceptional listening and communication skills. These skills are directly transferable to sales training, teaching sales professionals how to listen actively and communicate persuasively, thereby building stronger relationships with clients. Specifically, the importance of giving the customer space, asking the right question, not interrupting, acknowledging the answer, and asking a question based on the answer is how good therapy works, funnily enough, it’s EXACTLY how salespeople should operate too. Learning how to do this through training, coaching, and mentoring is one of the key elements of my full programme.

Emotional Intelligence

Dealing with trauma involves managing intense emotions. As a result, a trauma trained facilitator sales coach can instil high emotional intelligence in sales teams, enabling them to handle rejections, stress, and the emotional rollercoaster of the sales process with greater resilience. Furthermore, their ethical boundaries will be improved, leading to better quality selling.

Ethical Approach

A psychotherapist’s ethical framework centres around trust and confidentiality, which can imbue a sales training program with a strong sense of integrity, ensuring that sales techniques are not manipulative but rather based on creating genuine value. What’s more, as the sales will be more honourable, there should be fewer cancellations and complaints, increasing revenue at the same time. If a salesperson in your organisation can’t deliver ethical advice, leading to ethical sales, you may be storing issues up for future complaints.

Mastery of Non-Verbal Communication

Therapists are adept at reading and interpreting non-verbal cues. Incorporating this into sales training helps salespeople become more attuned to the unspoken signals from clients, allowing for more responsive and adaptive sales strategies. This is so important, even for telephone-based calls and for video-based sales calls.

Stress and Self-Care Strategies

Understanding the impact of stress and trauma, a psychotherapist can provide sales professionals with strategies to manage their own stress, prevent burnout, and maintain mental wellness, contributing to sustained performance and job satisfaction. Even more, I can teach the techniques for the salespeople to teach each other.

Conflict Resolution

A therapist's training includes resolving conflicts, which can help sales professionals navigate difficult conversations and negotiations, finding win-win solutions and maintaining positive client relationships. Indeed, teaching conflict resolution-based sales training modules really takes salespeople to the next level. If a salesperson can deliver conflict resolution to a customer, as part of their skillset, imagine how much more confident they would become.

Building Trust

Therapeutic relationships are built on trust, a skill that is essential in sales to ensure long-term client relationships and repeat business. Training that incorporates therapeutic techniques can improve trust-building capabilities within sales teams. Learning how to establish trust-based relationships is vital in professional sales and my courses do exactly that.

Understanding of Motivation and Change

Psychotherapists understand what motivates change in individuals, a skill that can be applied to both sales strategy development and in coaching sales teams to adopt new behaviours and techniques. Not only do the salespeople understand their motivation better, but they also start to understand their customer’s motivations and that become a powerful tool to drive more selling opportunities.

Customisation and Personalisation

Just as therapy is tailored to the individual, a psychotherapist trained sales coach can apply this personalised approach to sales training, recognising the unique strengths and areas for development in each salesperson. This really maximises the growth potential of everyone.

In conclusion, the breadth and depth of skills a trauma psychotherapist can offer provide an exceptional foundation for a holistic and powerful sales training program. It can elevate the sales process from a transactional exchange to a relationship-focused approach, which is particularly powerful in complex and consultative sales environments.

As a trauma facilitator trained sales trainer and coach that has written a book about dealing with trauma, you can see why my sales training and coaching programme is a very different prospect compared to standard programmes,