As a salesperson or team manager, training and growing is a process you’ll engage in throughout your career. Education is a life-long pursuit that can keep you current with the latest trends, techniques and technology in sales.
Educating your sales team members can not only increase sales, it can help to keep your team motivated and engaged, build loyalty for your company, and result in bigger paychecks for everyone involved!
Here are four tips to maximize your training program’s effectiveness and keep your sales team growing, engaged and working together to improve their results!
Use e-Learning to Educate Your Team
The Internet has made life-long learning easier than ever before. E-learning is flexible and can work for busy salespeople. In fact, Forrester Research found the 75% of employees prefer watching video over reading. In terms of your businesses bottom line, using video as an ongoing training resource reduces costs and can increase productivity. Video training is an “on-demand” service which can enable better retention. This is one of its key benefits. When your salesperson has the time, anytime, they can further their studies. It’s also a great benefit to be able to go back and review something they may have forgotten, or as a resource for additional information.
Keep Training Short and Consistent
As a general rule, sales reps have a short attention span when it comes to training – they’d rather be out selling! Video can keep them engaged and is more effective than PowerPoint. Studies have found that, on average, 84% of sales training content is lost after 90 days. Short videos can help reps to retain information longer, and can always be reviewed on-demand, as needed!
Share Success Stories
High engagement and increased morale has a direct impact on your company’s bottom line. Sharing mutual success instills a sense of unity among your team and can encourage them to work smarter. Providing recognition and reassurance instills confidence and fosters natural ability in sales. Add frequent flexible and manageable product education and in-field training and you’ll take your team from good, to selling superstars!
Field Train and Provide Immediate and Detailed Positive Feedback
Most of your team’s training happens in the real world out in the field. But an important element of their training is post-sales call analysis and feedback. Sales managers can use that feedback to encourage listening to, and understanding, the client’s needs. Feedback should happen as soon as possible after the meeting so your salesperson can reflect on the situation.
Are you interested in online learning options for your sales team? PartnerPro offers sales training specifically for Managed Print and Managed IT Services sales reps. Contact us today for a free trial to learn how we can help your sales team thrive!
