Michaels & Associates

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When it comes to overcoming obstacles related to enabling your company's sales team, here's another prescription for success you can try.

Ailment: Finding a one-size-fits-all training approach to enablement seems impossible. There just doesn't seem to be a solution that works for everyone.

Symptoms:

When considering your training approach, do you have any of the following symptoms?

• Although you offer training programs for new sales initiatives, they still seem uncoordinated and ineffective.


• Regardless of the approach you try, the training is unused or underutilized by the sales team.


• You've tried elearning but haven't realized the benefits you were hoping for.


• You've also tried instructor-led training, but it's expensive and takes the sales team away from their tasks and customers for too long.


• The sales team complains that they don't have enough time in their day to complete the training. Because they are highly mobile, they resort to completing training during their evening or weekend hours increasing their frustration and decreasing their attention and enthusiasm.

Prescription:

If you're feeling like there's not one solution that meets all your needs, you're probably right. Instead of looking for a single approach, consider the multiple issues salespeople face. It's important to realize that they may need a slightly different training solution than other audiences in the organization. Sales enablement training requires a unique blended learning approach that provides training and resources exactly when learners need it.

More than likely, your sales team spends a good portion of their time away from their office and in meetings. How can your training approach address this issue?

Deliver the training in small chunks that can be completed between sales calls. Short 5 or 10 minute elearning segments or recorded webinars are much more effective than modules that require the salesperson to be in front of a computer or in a classroom for an hour, a day, a week.

The training should also be in a format that can be easily accessed anywhere, anytime. Can your current learning management system (LMS) provide this availability? If not, the sales team may need a more accessible solution than the rest of your organization. For example, post videos on a YouTube channel, include elearning in your internal knowledge center/learning portal or use a web (cloud)-based LMS.

Have you considered your approach to developing training for the sales team's personalities and learning styles? For example, training should be more interactive, where the learners can practice implementing strategies and receive immediate feedback, reinforcement and remediation.

Real Life Example:

With our help, a Michaels & Associates client created a well received and highly effective blended learning solution with the following components.

• Several short (less than 10 minutes), interactive elearning modules that introduced a new product with a new module released each week


• A case study that built a customer's story throughout each elearning module and guided learners through developing a solution and sales strategy for the scenario


• A case study solution that sales managers used to coach their team after completion of each module


• A group review and game, presented at the company's annual sales meeting


• Group breakouts at the sales meeting, where salespeople shared their case study solutions and sought feedback from their peers


• Support tools including a PowerPoint template with graphics, job aids and checklists that salespeople could use to work through the sales cycle with their customers

Would something like this work for you? A blended learning program like this would also work well with forums, social media solutions, on-demand knowledge centers and best practice blogs so learners can share their thoughts about the training and see what others think and feel.

In part three of this article, we will discuss the challenges of sales team adoption and enablement and a prescription for their success. Until then, we welcome your thoughts and would love to include your comments in our published series of this article!

Continue reading:
Sales Team Enablement: Prescriptions for Success (Part 1) →
Sales Team Enablement: Prescriptions for Success (Part 3) →
Sales Team Enablement: Prescriptions for Success (Part 4) →