Why Your Sales Training is Ineffective (And What to Do About It)

If you want to outperform the competition, don’t delay adoption. Companies who bolster their training strategy with cloud and mobile technologies have a strong advantage that impacts their bottom line and increases their ability to attract and retain top talent.

A competent sales team meets targets, a poor team misses out, and an excellent one surpasses expectations. The gap between a poor and an excellent team hinges on their knowledge, skills, and motivation. Your team may lack one or more of these factors, but all three can be enhanced, updated and scaled by sales training online.

For example, if you rely heavily on conventional training platforms such as in-house workshops, manuals, off-site seminars, and classroom learning, then exploring new online sales training formats is imperative.

You can still — and should — vary platforms and materials, but entering the field without tapping relevant technologies will only drag down your profit potential and allow competitors to expand market share at your expense.

Companies Are Investing In Training — And They’re Doing It Online

The facts reveal a clear trend:

• Top performing companies make huge investments in training and development, with mean training budgets clocking in at $30.6 million or nearly 6% of payroll. (Training Magazine) [1]
• Nearly 9 in 10 Americans are online, with around 80% owning mobile devices. (Pew Research) [2]
• Millennial internet users spend an average 185 minutes every day on the mobile internet. (Statista) [3]
• Millennials prefer to learn online and through mobile devices. (NovoEd) [4]
• Training ranks among the most important factors contributing to not only competency and better performance, but also to employee satisfaction and retention. (CIO) [5]

There are 2 key takeaways from these stats:

1. Training is indispensable and game-changing.
2. The next generation of workers prefer to learn through online training via mobile devices.

Millennials account for the largest employee age group today [6] and will likely remain so for many years ahead. By aligning your training culture with millennial behavior and preferences, you lay the foundation for a well-equipped sales team positioned to excel in tomorrow’s business landscapes.

10 Benefits Of Taking Your Sales Training Online

Bringing your sales training online allows your team to access materials on demand, wherever they are. This helps reduce training costs, ease mentor loads and shorten the learning curve.

Here’s a list of benefits your organization will experience when you decide to take your sales training online:

1. Accessibility
   Any internet-capable device can access cloud-based services. Sales team members can improve product knowledge, selling skills and business acumen wherever they are and at any time they want.
2. Versatility and customization
   Training content can be customized in many ways. Gamification, videos, articles, FAQs, case studies, forums, and presentations are just some of the learning elements and content types LMS (Learning Management System) administrators can use to better engage employees.
3. Scalability
   Unlike in-person setups where venue size and instructor headcount limit the number of learners who can take a course or join a workshop, online sales training can be scaled indefinitely. Thousands of students can access a learning site at the same time.
4. Reduced HR costs
   Online learning dramatically cuts costs, especially when it replaces conventional and legacy practices such as onsite workshops and paid off-site training that require mentoring/teaching fees, as well as travel, reservations and accommodation expenses.
5. Improved productivity
   Highly motivated sales professionals who possess deep product knowledge, strong selling skills and updated business intelligence can find, engage and close more valuable deals more productively compared to less-trained peers.
6. Better employee engagement and retention rates
   Employees — especially Millennials — consider training as a key benefit. Many workers postpone plans of joining another employer or shifting careers due to the superior training infrastructure of their current companies. Moreover, an organization known for offering top-of-the-line training attracts proactive and ambitious job seekers.
7. Ease of use
   Using the online channel, you can always design responsive learning modules for different learner skills and abilities.
8. Interactivity
   Cloud/web-based technologies allow learners to perform activities, play games, join surveys and respond to questions.
9. The consistency of learning content
   You can change learning materials, but any active content remains the same for all learners accessing the training site at the same time.
10. Ability to monitor learner progress
    You can integrate assessment exams and performance metrics to your learning infrastructure. This allows proper monitoring, evaluation and guidance of learners.

Drive Productivity By Taking Your Sales Training Online

Because training impacts sales team performance, it ranks high on the strategic agenda of the most competitive and profitable organizations.

If you want to outperform the competition, don’t delay adoption. Companies who bolster their training strategy with cloud and mobile technologies have a strong advantage that impacts their bottom line and increases their ability to attract and retain top talent.

Take your Sales training to the next level with Northpass. Get started with a free consultation today or download our free Complete LMS Buying Guide.

Designed for companies with over 100 employees, Northpass is a modern, easy-to-use learning management system for the rapid creation and contextual delivery of branded training modules.

Footnotes:

1. Training Magazine Ranks 2015 Top 125 Organizations
2. Record shares of Americans now own smartphones, have home broadband
3. Internet usage worldwide — Statistics & Facts
4. 5 Strategies for Corporate eLearning in a Millennial Workforce
5. Investing in your employees’ career growth drives satisfaction
6. Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation

Originally published at elearningindustry.com on August 25, 2017.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 300,118+ people.

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