Effective Sales Training
Companies are spending 20 billion dollars a year on sales training, according to the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) – 20 billion! Yet almost ¾ of those companies say that they’re not getting the ROI they expect from their sales training. A large part of that is because companies are not responding to the trends and shifts in sales training. They’re not understanding how learning is happening today.
Shifts in Sales Training and Development
Shifts are going from classroom learning, to more of a blended approach. It’s no longer feasible for everyone to always be in the same room. Online learning or a mix of online learning and classroom learning provides a much better option.
Also, there are savvier reps entering the marketplace. They’re used to technology. They expect things to be tech-based, e-learning-based, and ready to go whenever they’re ready to learn.
There’s a shift in the skills that we’re needing in the workplace as well. Sales reps now have to be able to go into a meeting and be provocative. They have to deliver insights. That takes a whole new set of skills, a set of skills many companies are not equipped to deliver.
How do Sales Reps Learn?
So where, can you start? Start by looking at how your reps learn:
Observing what works and doesn’t work for peers, and taking that into their own knowledge base
Watching best practices – whether watching a sales call or classroom learning or e-learning videos
Experiencing best practices through interactive learning that gets them involved in a process
Your sales reps learn by putting all that they’ve learned into action. It’s helpful to have sales-ready tools that are just-in-time, ready to equip reps and instantly be taken into the field.
Connecting Sales Content and Sales Actions
Equipping sales reps with just-in-time tools requires two things: connecting content and action. The best way to do that is through a sales playbook.
A sales playbook helps take all of the best practice content that you have, along with videos and other tools, and puts them all together in one place. So, the playbook can address all of the ways your people learn and can addresses all of the shifts taking place in training and development.
