Ever wondered why all the juicy bonuses and the best jobs go to the top sellers? It’s simple: effective selling is key to business development.
The good news is: you too can be among the A-list salespeople if you make continuous, lifelong learning your friend. Unsure? Check out this finding by the RAIN Group: 71 percent of top-performing sellers reported receiving highly effective sales training.
Top salespeople are passionate learners who get that way through continuous learning. You are not so different from them—if you can add the "learning" factor.
So, in the presence of a gazillion sales training courses available online, how do you find the right one?
We’re here to save you the stress. We’ve combed through the Internet using our experience as seasoned sales professionals to find you the best 15 sales courses in different categories.
Ready to take your career to the next level? Read on.
4 Free Sales Courses You Can Start Today
I know free lunches get a bad rap, but we are lucky to have a lot of good people dedicated to sharing their knowledge—for free. On learning platforms like Udemy and Coursera, you’ll find excellent professional development and sales courses.
If you can get paid training, that's awesome. But free sales courses are a good place to start if you’re just getting started and aren’t sure you want to take the plunge.
Here are some free sales training programs that can help you kick-start your sales career:
All prices are current at the time of initial publication.
1. The Essential Guide to Negotiation Hacks, by Steli Efti
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Steli Efti, our CEO at Close, developed the Essential Guide to Negotiation Hacks.
As you’re aware, negotiation is a key component of closing deals, and Steli is one of the best deal closers in Silicon Valley.
Steli has assisted over 200 VC-backed firms in launching and scaling their sales processes, closing tens of millions of dollars in deals in the process. But what you’ll enjoy most is his no-BS, no-fluff teaching style.
If you’re looking for something highly practical and actionable, even for a beginner, this course is for you.
In this 11-module course, you’ll learn:
- Different hacks and psychology of negotiating and closing deals
- How to respond to discount inquiries
- How to overcome sales objections
- How to negotiate with a customer
- Deal closing techniques
- How to identify your sales superpower
Sign up for Steli’s sales negotiation class.
Best for: Newbie sales professionals, experienced sales professionals, and entrepreneurs
Format: Self-paced video lessons
2. Starting in Sales, by Spencer Lodge
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Starting in Sales is a free online sales course targeted at ordinary people looking to make a career switch to sales.
The 10-module course covers:
- Traits needed to become a salesperson
- How to approach a client
- How to supercharge your sales
- The importance of teamwork
- What to concentrate on to boost your sales performance, etc.
This simple and concise course will take you about 36 minutes to complete. What I like most is how it focuses on imbuing you with the right attitude to make you a successful salesperson. The instructor, Spencer Lodge, delivered it with a lot of energy and clarity.
You can access it through this link.
Best for: Beginner sales professionals
Format: Video lessons
3. Starting Your Sales Career, by Sherrylyn Filoteo
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Thinking about starting a sales career in SaaS? Sehrrylyn, an enterprise sales executive at Accenture, has something for you.
In this course, she starts by challenging your assumptions and making you think critically about why you want to go into sales. She then dives into the typical SaaS sales cycle, how to identify the best sales role for you, and how to deal with the people higher up, such as account managers and sales managers.
By the end of this course, you’ll know more about relationship-based selling and how to find your feet in the SaaS sales industry. You can access the course here.
Best for: Beginner salespeople
Format: Video lessons
4. Free Online Sales Training, by Soco Academy
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Soco Sales Training has been coaching companies on how to sell better since 1999. While the sales environment has advanced significantly during those years, there is still a lot to learn from a firm that has been in the system for that long.
Besides, you’ll agree with me that the only reason they're likely still in business is their ability to get results for their clients.
What sets their training course apart is that it targets both B2B and B2C sales teams. If you’re a beginner, that gives you a better chance to decide earlier in your career which of the markets you want to focus on.
This course teaches sales presentation skills, prospecting skills, sales methodologies, objection handling, social selling, sales call scripts, salesforce management, and more. You can access it here.
Best for: Beginner sales professionals
Format: Video lessons
Online Courses on the Fundamentals of Sales
While free courses can help you get started in sales, paid courses come with some perks you cannot overlook.
Most free courses, for example, do not include any certifications, but premium courses nearly always do. Certifications on your CV might also increase your chances of getting an interview.
Here are some online courses on the fundamentals of sales.
5. The Sales Accelerator, by Anthony Iannarino
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The Sales Accelerator training is focused on making you a more productive seller. It’s a membership-based course, and you or your company can make a one-year subscription to gain full access.
Although it focuses more on B2B sales best practices, anyone can benefit.
When you subscribe, you’ll get access to hundreds of hours of training videos, interactive training modules and role plays, scripts, access to live events, and training certificates. You’ll also get workbooks and guides to help you implement your training.
Here is a link to the course.
Best for: Sales reps, sales managers, and founders
Price: $997 per year
Format: Video lessons, live events, quizzes, and books.
6. Sales Machine: The Sales Training B2B Master Course, by Patrick Dang
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Far from being typical, Patrick Dang, the instructor of this course, brought his experience as a top sales guy at Oracle to this course material.
This is an informative course that covers sales mindset, rapport building, setting expectations, uncovering pain points, budgeting, presentations, cold calling, sales prospecting, and closing.
By the end of this course, you’ll have learned how to build long-term relationships with people, turn them into buyers, and keep them for a long time.
The course is available through this link.
Best for: Sales professionals, entrepreneurs, and beginner salespeople
Price: $74.99 (but Udemy often has promotions)
Format: Video lessons and downloadable resources
7. Sales Fundamentals, by the Mandatory Training Group
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The Sales Fundamentals course will teach you how to be a great closer. It empowers you to understand the language of sales, know how to begin a conversation on the right foot, make an effective sales pitch, close the deal, manage sales data, and set sales goals.
You’ll also learn all the basic sales techniques, such as sales prospecting and how to follow up.
Other important things you’ll learn are sales data management and how to use a prospect board. Upon completion, you’ll become a CPD-certified professional.
You can access the course here.
Best for: Anyone willing to learn sales
Price: £19.99
Format: Text and audio content
8. Fundamentals of Sales, by Hemsley Fraser
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Learning about customer pain points, focusing on customers’ perspectives of value, understanding the buying cycle, and negotiating mutual interest are essential skills for any salesperson.
This training teaches you all those things.
It also explains how to take a critical look at the competition’s sales strategies so that you can easily dislodge them from the mind of the customer and find a winning positioning for your brand.
This is a one-day workshop that’ll help you identify your personal selling qualities, learn how to open sales conversations, communicate effectively, master cold calling, and handle objections well.
You can learn more and register for the course here.
Best for: Beginners and intermediary salespeople
Price: Available upon request
Format: Video lessons and live sessions
Best Sales Management Courses
Are you already in sales but want to show your employer you’re ready to take the next leap in your career? Or, perhaps, you’ve just been promoted to a sales management position and need to level up?
Either way, the following sales management courses will help you up your game as a sales manager.
9. RAIN Sales Management, by the RAIN Group
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To be an exceptional sales manager, you must master interviewing and hiring sales reps, territory planning and analysis, pipeline management and sales forecasting, customer success, good decision-making, and leading effective sales meetings.
This course lets you grasp those concepts with some level of mastery. The course comes in various modalities, including on-site and virtual instructor-led training.
The good thing about taking the RAIN sales management course is: they know exactly what you need, and every subscriber receives a training program tailored to their unique needs. Good stuff!
You can check out more details about the course here.
Best for: Sales managers, sales departments, and sales organizations
Price: Available upon request
Format: In-person and online training options
10. Sales Management, by Great Learning Academy
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If you are not yet fully transitioning into sales management but simply want to upskill and prepare for the future, this is the right course for you.
This one teaches the foundations of sales management as if in a classroom. It is not particularly advanced, but it covers all of the fundamentals.
By the end, you'll be equipped with the knowledge and skills required to take on a sales management position. This will allow you to begin and learn as you go.
The certificate of completion you get upon its completion is another benefit worth considering. Here is a link to access the course.
Best for: Sales reps, entrepreneurs, and sales managers
Price: Free
Format: Video lecturers
11. Sales Manager: Keys to Effective Sales Management!, by Steve Ballinger, MBA
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Steve Ballinger’s sales management course is highly actionable and result-oriented. Besides discussing sales management fundamentals, Steve discusses some contentious issues that affect businesses in their day-to-day sales operations.
For instance, when discussing how to hire the ideal sales staff, he discussed the ethics and questions of hiring away from competitors. He also teaches you how to become a better delegator, how to create primary and activity goals for sales reps, and how to measure your own performance.
The course also goes into hard conversations such as performance management and termination of contracts. The presentation shows that Steve has a lot of experience, and his recommendations are highly actionable and relevant in real-life scenarios.
You know what? Check it out here yourself.
Best for: Sales managers, sales reps, and founders
Price: $14.99
Format: Video lessons
12. Sales Management, by ACS Distance Education
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This is for you if you prefer the academic route but want to avoid sitting in a classroom on campus.
This course consists of nine lessons that include:
- Developing sales concepts
- Developing sales relationships
- Sales ethics
- Building product knowledge
- Developing a customer strategy
- Presentation strategy options and more
It also has practical components that you can achieve on your own, regardless of your location.
And at the end of the course, you’ll get a Statement of Attainment, qualifying you as a sales manager. Check it out here.
Best for: Sales managers looking to upskill
Price: AUD $759.05
Format: Video lessons and course notes
In-Person Sales Training Courses
While online platforms and virtual training can provide valuable knowledge and information, they cannot often truly immerse sales professionals in dynamic, face-to-face interactions.
In-person learning, on the other hand, offers invaluable opportunities to practice active listening, observe body language, and engage in real-time conversations.
Through role-playing exercises, group discussions, and direct feedback from experienced trainers and peers, you can refine your communication skills, develop empathy, and master the art of building genuine connections with clients.
If that’s your goal, we’ve included some excellent in-person sales training courses below.
13. Fundamentals of Selling, by the Canadian Professional Sales Association
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This course teaches you a consultative selling approach. It’s also an avenue to interact with other sales experts and fellow students and make the right connections.
You’ll learn how to gather market and client intelligence, as well as how to personalize solutions to the client’s needs.
The training is hybrid, with a part delivered online and a part held on-site across various locations in Canada.
By the end of the course, you can expect to have learned how to build a sales system from the ground up in any capacity, whether as a sales manager, a sales rep, or an entrepreneur.
You can click here to learn more.
Best for: Sales professionals, startup founders, and customer service professionals
Price: $2,194
14. Dale Carnegie Sales Training: Winning with Relationship Selling
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Dale Carnegie’s sales training teaches relationship-based selling.
If you’re in B2B, you’ll understand that selling to B2B buyers is often a long, protracted process. In this process, prospects experience risk and want to try their best to eliminate that risk.
So, where will you be in all that? Will you be a partner they look up to or another aggressive sales rep who just wants to make a quick buck?
If you are against aggressive sales tactics, the Dale Carnegie sales training helps you build the confidence and character you need to project credibility, build trust and rapport, and ultimately close sales.
You can find out more here.
Best for: Sales professionals and business owners
Price: $2,395
15. Critical Selling Skills, by Janek Performance Group
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If you’re aiming to earn the highly coveted trusted advisor’s seat at your customer’s table, this program helps you see the difference between a typical salesperson and a trusted advisor, as well as how you can become the latter.
It’s a one-day workshop where you can pick up critical selling skills, revise what you know, and gain additional knowledge.
Here is a link to learn more about the training.
Best for: Sales reps
Price: $1,945
Level up Your Sales Skills with the Right Sales Courses
With the right attitude and an appetite for learning, you can earn your place as an A+ seller.
Just get a wealth of knowledge, enhance your skills, make valuable connections, and cultivate a continuous improvement mindset; you’ll see how you become indispensable to organizations.
Embracing the opportunity for ongoing learning and professional development is a key differentiator in the highly competitive world of sales.
Not sure where to start? Check out our free resources and continue learning.
