This article talks about improving your sales training in 4 easy ways:

• Efficient use of employees’ time

• Sharing of information when the need is hot (just-in-time)

• Up-to-date learning

• Benefits of both classroom and digital training

 

A blended learning approach can be defined as a strategy that combines the personalized attention of traditional learning methods with the flexibility of digital methods. This approach emphasizes on improving the levels of learning achieved through face-to-face or online courses through blended instructions.

When it comes to training your sales team, there are multiple aspects that you need to consider about their job as it’s not an easy one. Sales professionals are required to multitask to be successful in their jobs. They need to aggressively source new businesses, engage in quality customer interactions, and manage reports to achieve their targets. Their job demands thorough knowledge and understanding of the product and services your organization offers to your clients. Complete information should be at their fingertips to be able to talk to their potential customers.

An organization expects quality output from their sales team based on the targets defined for each of them. This can be achieved efficiently when they are trained well. However, we are aware that the sales team is constantly on their feet, and providing them with fruitful training becomes a challenge to the organization. They not only need to be trained on useful product information and market insights, but also on soft skill development. Hence, your sales learning strategy needs to relate to these aspects in detail.

Ideally, a sales learning strategy should provide a blend of all these three factors, packaged in a way that catches the attention of sales professionals who are mostly running short of time. Blended learning is an effective way to meet all your sales training needs. Here is how this can be done:

Efficient use of employees’ time

Provide your sales team with digital notes and training material well before you conduct a classroom training session with them. You can utilize the valuable time of classroom training to further build and improve their understanding of the knowledge gained from the digital training material. This ensures that the team is progressing in the desired direction of learning and are also gaining practical insights on how to put that learning to use. Clearing their doubts about the digital material also happens in real time and this makes the training timeless and impactful.

Sharing of information just-in-time

While on the field, sales employees are on their own. There is a possibility that they may not be able to give their best when they are about to meet a big client. During such times, recollecting classroom training knowledge can be difficult. In such a situation, having just-in-time information on mobile devices can provide the required performance support to the team. These short mobile courses can help them quickly run through their classroom or e-learning course material to back their meeting with factually correct information. It gives learners need-to-know information in tiny and digestible bites that are easy to read and absorb. This also increases knowledge recollection and improves the chances of closing the sale.

Up-to-date learning

The advantage of including digital learning in blended learning is that it provides the latest information and learning updates in no time. Organizations dealing with products can make the most out of this as products get outdated within a very short time. New versions and modules need to be updated at a faster pace that makes it difficult to go by the traditional learning approach. An LMS is a good means to update courses effortlessly with just the click of a button.   This ensures that your entire sales team has access to the latest courses and information at any given point in time.

Benefits of both, classroom and digital training

Classroom training provides sales professionals the space to enact sales-scenarios using role-play games. These encourage them to conduct quality discussions with peers to frame an effective sales-strategy and also develop an analysis of competitors. eLearning courses, on the other hand, make it easy for the learners to grasp information through the effective use of multimedia like videos, audio, infographics, animations, etc. Hence, blended learning brings the best of these two methods of learning together, making it an extremely effective medium for providing knowledge and quality training.

So, if you are opting for a blended learning approach to train your sales team, prepare a fair blend of training courses and material to overcome most of the challenges faced in training sales professionals. To know how you can ready your sales force for the harsh market outside using a blended approach, connect with us today.