Low retention rates in your sales training sessions? We feel you – delivering successful sales training is no easy task. But the good news is, your LMS can help…
Ah salespeople! Some of the best people we know – really! Some of the best salespersons out there are positive thinkers, driven by research and never-ending curiosity to discover fast-growing markets, new technologies, and new techniques to make them succeed.
The making of a great salesperson is no easy task. We are constantly dealing with the ongoing changes in the sales world, like chatbots or artificial intelligence. The world is no longer the one we have learned to learn and coach in.
So, what do we do? How do we still make sure that in our team are the best, most aptly prepared salesmen (and women) for today’s changing world?
The answer that comes to mind is training.
In the sales world, some may refer to it as “in-field coaching”. It has the same concept as on-the-job training that we know so well (and can help you with if you need it, too!)
How to Use an LMS to Support Successful Sales Training
In this article, we’ve taken some of the Center of Sales Strategy’s top tips to successful in-field coaching and HubSpot’s effective sales training strategies and compared them to the features in our Learning Management System.
Together, we aim to show you exactly what an LMS can do for you when it comes to delivering successful sales training.
1. Plan and track your coaching
The first tip we gather from the articles is to prepare the coaching in advance.
Easy enough – with an LMS solution, planning becomes something of a norm. Any well-designed LMS gives its users the option to plan out their training sessions and opportunities in advance, set dates for those training sessions, and automatically track and produce reports of who did the training, when, and what more they may have to complete.
Face-to-face coaching more your style? Ekko gives users the option of seminar planning, where one can plan and store all the necessary information inside the system. These can include the materials you’ll need during the seminar (like presentations or brochures), managing a signup sheet through the system for audience members, and much more.
2. Use technology to your advantage
The next tip is to use gamification and videos.
We got it – it’s already in our DNA. In Ekko you can embed videos, SCORM packages, and other elements into your online courses that can be reached from anywhere, anytime.
Looking to gamify things up a bit while checking your learners gained knowledge? An example of using the system would be to use a variety of question forms in your courses – such as rating questions or multiple choice, to test your learner’s progress and achievements.
3. Use the power of the group
Encouraging peer learning is another great tip, and can come to life easily in your LMS.
There are so many options for social learning, such as setting up forums so trainees can talk to each other, using different kinds of chats and messaging forms in your course of programs, and much more.
4. Repeat yourself – logically
Using the power of “effective frequency” (in other words, repetitions that allow retention the information we acquire) is another great tip.
By tracking and logically controlling what our salespersons learn, we make sure concepts are fully embraced before moving on to the next.
This brings us to an important concept implemented in the LMS: creating a paced, logically thought out journey containing several steps for our learners.
In Ekko, we call these journeys ‘programs’; several planned out events that can combine different courses, assignments, face-to-face meetings, and anything else that you desire. Though the system does contain some suggestions for appropriate programs and courses, there’s always the option to change and make your programs represent you.
5. Track and criticize (to grow!)
The last, and one of the most important steps of managing successful in-field coaching is taking constant notes on your salespersons’ performances, tracking their progress, and giving them feedback, so they can see and improve their results as they learn.
The easiest way to keep everything in one place and manage feedback is through an automated LMS, which can store your notes on an employee, notify you when the time for evaluation has come, and help you assign future courses and programs to your salesperson based on their strengths and weaknesses.
That way, for example, if my strength lies in management and my weakness in customer satisfaction rates, I may be assigned a more advanced course in one, and a more basic one in the other, according to my needs.
Sales Coaching Made Easy With Ekko
Those are our tips for today!
If you’d like to explore some of the advantages of sales coaching through an LMS, maybe you’d like to arrange a demo of Ekko?