Sales.
It is the engine that powers businesses throughout the world.
In the U.S., 1 in 8 jobs are full-time sales positions (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Sales play a role in every single business there is and ever was. Some businesses have huge sales teams whereas others have smaller ones, but one thing rings true: without sales, there would be no business.
Training all the salesmen
Success in the workplace is contingent upon successful sales teams, so it should come as no surprise that sales is the number one biggest expenditure for many businesses when it comes to training.
- US companies spend $20 BILLION annually on sales training. (ATD)
- Organizations spend $5,000 per year on training each individual sales rep. (IKO Systems)
- 40% of sales training costs come from traveling and lodging. (Forbes)
- 75% of employees prefer watching video over text. (Forrester Research)
Retaining the training with video
With these staggering numbers, it is clear to see that businesses understand the significance of sales training and are willing to invest millions of dollars to the cause. With that said, using video as an ongoing training resource for salespeople reduces costs and boosts productivity.
According to the Brevet Group and their findings on long-term memory:
- 80% comes from seeing and doing
- 20% comes from reading
- 10% comes from hearing
This shows that visual training will not most likely help salespeople retain information, but that it will help salespeople retain information. To put it in perspective, we receive 5x more information than we did in 1986. That’s 174 newspapers worth of data EVERY DAY (Dr. Martin Hilbert/University of Southern California). Video simplifies this information overload by slicing up the most relevant information into short clips.
Take your training with you
Despite video training enabling for better retention, one of the key benefits of it is its ability to be an on-demand resource for the times when salespeople need additional information or a quick answer to something they may have forgotten. According to the Association for Talent Development (ATD), on-demand learning yields 50% higher net sales per employee. Double the productivity for something as easy as a video-based sales enablement app is truly impressive.
Even more impressive, is the fact that video cuts the cost of training nearly in half (IBM). Before video, 40% of training expenditures came from lodging and travel costs alone. This dramatic reduction of cost has been verified by big name companies. IBM was able to save $579 million over two years with the adoption of video training. Similarly, Microsoft transitioned to video training and was able to reduce costs from $320 per employee to $17 per employee.
Better training, lower cost
Video is enabling sales teams across the world to increase performance, boost productivity, and reduce training costs substantially. It’s evident that businesses see the value of training but it seems that two factors often get in the way of businesses providing the most optimum training they can: a lack of resources and money.
Fortunately for business, video training is a sustainable learning tool that can be distributed via mobile apps both cutting costs and cutting needs for additional resources such as travel and lodging accommodations and professional on-site instructors.
Originally published at www.retrieve.com.
