If the words “sales training” causes your reps to groan or roll their eyes, perhaps it’s time to reassess your training methods.
Even the most reluctant rep understands that training is necessary. Whether it’s onboarding training for a new hire or continuing education to get your reps the latest and greatest information that will help them increase their numbers (and your company’s bottom line), training can be a powerful tool.
But how do you keep the reps awake, engaged, and learning more than ever? We’ve got some tips for improving your sales training ROI (and reduce the sound of snores in the training room).
Onboard Training Tips
The process for onboarding reps is extensive. You’ve got to pass along a lot of information in a short period of time, and you hope that the new hires are able to absorb everything you’re throwing at them. Here are a few tips that will help you make onboarding easier for everyone involved:
Onboarding Tip #1: Streamline
Take input about the process of training a new hire from all levels of the company—sales management, HR, IT, operations, marketing, etc— and incorporate it into your training protocol. There’s bound to be some repetition between departments, so if you’re able to remove any overlap, you’re saving time and removing opportunity for the new rep to zone out.
Onboarding Tip #2: Incremental Goals
Training for a new job can feel a lot like trying to drink from a fire hose. Your new hires are getting a lot of new (and important) information at one time, and they’re made to feel that every tidbit is vital to their job. Instead, break up the training into a series of smaller steps.
The sales rep is more likely to retain the knowledge if it’s broken up into modules. They’ll have time to absorb everything before they move on to the next step. Additionally, breaking up the steps will give reps a feeling of accomplishment as time goes on.
Onboarding Tip #3: Provide Feedback
If you offer management and mentors a way to see the progress being made by the trainee, they can offer constructive feedback as the new employee works their way through the training program. Trainees will have a better chance of not stalling out mid-program when management can step in and offer advice to set them back on track.
Onboarding Tip #4: Internal Network
When new sales reps hit a roadblock, they need to know where to turn for support. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t always clear in traditional training programs. New sales reps need to know who to turn to when they have questions after training. This will empower them to ask questions before they’re put in an uncomfortable situation that could negatively impact their relationship with a prospective client.
Most onboarding training takes place in a classroom setting. Using Option Technologies’ OptionPower software as an add-on to Powerpoint presentations will help trainees interact with the training presentations and retain more information faster and without leaving them with the desire to take a nap.
Continuing Training
When new products are introduced, or new technology becomes available, your sales meetings offer a great opportunity to train long-time employees on these advances in the company. OptionPower has an array of PowerPoint games like Jeopardy, FastFinger, and Points for Answers that can be played to keep your employees actively engaged in the meeting.
Continuing Training Tip #1: Learning
It is no secret that sales teams are competitive. Take that competitive tendency and use it to engage your team, encouraging them to ask questions for “points.” Your sales reps will sit up and pay attention if there is a competition for knowing the right answers. Make sure you show the right answer after all the answers have been entered and then expand on the answer to help the reps learn even further about the training point.
Continuing Training Tip #2: Evaluation
After the meeting, you can export data from the OptionPower software to evaluate how many people got answers right and wrong. These evaluations can be company wide, so different meetings on the same topics can be compared. Management can use these evaluations as part of individual or team performance feedback.
Continuing Training Tip #3: Entertainment and Relationship Building
Games keep things moving— there’s less chance of your training getting dull if everyone’s engaged with a fun game. If you want your sales reps paying attention, you have to keep it upbeat. Sound effects and music elements often come along with games, keeping the meeting lively and from getting too quiet and preventing just one person from droning on and on. If you really want to get your team’s attention, consider offering prizes to teams or individuals with highest scores
Teams can be formed according to sales territories or mixed up to create relationships across territories. Allow teams in lead to chose categories, and remind teammates that they must talk to one another in order to do well, which will further build relationships within your sales team.
An excellent resource for your sales training is Option Technologies and their product solutions for interactive meetings. OptionPower gives you the ability to customize your games for training purposes specifically to what you want to accomplish in your meeting!
Call an agent today to talk about how we can help improve your onboard and continuing training for your sales reps to help implement new products and processes more efficiently and effectively.
