Sales Readiness Group and Training Industry researched the impact of sales training. They found that companies with “sales skills training programs exceeding expectations” had significantly higher win rates (52.6%) compared to companies with programs that met expectations (48%) or required improvement (40.5 %).”) The obvious question is: How can a company offer employees corporate training programs that surpass expectations?
Let’s begin with what we want from training, specifically online corporate training. It all boils down to learning new information that will help us in our work. However, if you combine learning modules from every educational material your company has created, your online learning won’t be effective, efficient, or time-consuming. Imagine sales managers being required to keep customers waiting while they complete such a training program. They won’t.
Sales Training Tools
You will need five L&D tools to launch and maintain online sales training within your company: an authoring tool, a learning management platform; a microlearning platform; a virtual instructor-led trainer tool and a communication tool. These tools will help you learn everything, from creating and delivering training programs to facilitating communication. Let’s take a closer look at each one.
A tool for authoring
A ScoRM authoring tool allows you to create eLearning content, convert it into an online format and then deliver it via a learning management platform. Although authoring tools have different capabilities, the core features are identical. These tools allow you to:
Create courses
Most courses are slide-based and include animations and interaction.
Build assessments
It is impossible to have education without assessing how learners learn new information. You can make this part of learning less stressful by using an authoring tool. Drag-and-drop questions and hot spots are all possible with interactive quizzes.
Create customer communications simulations
To allow salespeople to learn from digital simulations and not through real-life, use characters representing your customers. It’s like a flight simulator for pilots. Although it may not save lives or make your company more profitable, such sales training can save and enhance your business’s bottom line.
A Learning Management System (LMS)
A learning management platform (or LMS) is software that manages training and tracks trainee progress. It can be thought of as an online university for your company that stores all the educational material required by different departments and keeps track of which courses were passed and failed.
Let’s use iSpring Learn as an example to show you what this tool can do for sales. iSpring Learn automates all aspects of training management. It will assign onboarding courses to new salespeople and notify sales teams about any updates to your product. It can also entertain assess their skills and knowledge. You will be able to see the statistics of each employee so that you can determine what they excel at and what areas they need to improve. The materials can be accessed by learners from any device at any moment.
A few LMSs have an integrated authoring tool that makes it easy to create basic courses. iSpring Learn has a web-based course maker that allows you to quickly create article-like courses. This tool is not available in other LMSs. It comes in a bundle along with iSpring Suite so you can easily build any eLearning content and then distribute it via iSpring Learn.
The best LMSs for sales training are SAP Litmos, iSpring Learn and LearnUpon.
A microlearning platform
Microlearning platforms combine the best of both an LMS and authoring tools. You can create bite-sized eLearning content that you can distribute to your employees. Small businesses with fewer than 100 employees can use microlearning platforms to learn. Although their functionality is limited, you can still offer salespeople short product training programs that they can access on their own time via their mobile devices.
The best microlearning platforms to learn sales skills: OttoLearn and Gnowbe
Virtual instructor-led training program
Online courses and other eLearning materials play the largest role in modern training. However, face-to–face sessions still have a high demand because of their human interaction. You will need the right tool to achieve your learning goals using this approach. Zoom is a popular virtual instructor-led tool.
Although Zoom is a good solution, it limits both the abilities of instructors and trainees to present materials, meet learners and get feedback in chat. Advanced tools allow for collaboration, such as the whiteboard in Microsoft Teams that allows trainees to collaborate on projects and brainstorm.
RecRoom is one example of software that allows you to run VR training sessions in virtual reality using characters. These features can make learning more enjoyable and productive.
The best virtual training tools for sales training are Microsoft Teams and WebEx.
Communication tool
Communication is an integral part of any learning process. Salespeople must exchange ideas on new skills and knowledge, share new strategies, and discuss best practices. How can they do this when they study and work remotely? It is hard to imagine them using email for this purpose. While social media may work for some, many employees prefer to keep their private lives private.
If you are in this position, a communication tool could be the best solution. There are many functions to them. Some work as corporate messengers like Slack, while others function as corporate social media (like Workplace). You and your sales team can choose the one that is most relevant to you. Your sales training will be more meaningful and lasting if trainees are able to discuss it later.
