10 Reasons to Leverage Mobile Sales Training
Between 2005 and 2018, remote work in the United States has risen by an astonishing 173%. Improvements in technology and more accessible programs have allowed telecommuting to become more of the norm than the anomaly for a number of industries including healthcare, marketing, and sales professions.
While the trajectory has been steadily increasing since the early 2000s, the adoption rate since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has grown even steeper. As increasing numbers of companies begin to announce their plans to continue at-home work policies for the foreseeable future and have settled into procedural routines to accommodate, it is not a trend that will be going away anytime soon.
Those against or still learning about telecommuting or remote work list productivity, oversight, and training among their top concerns. For the purposes of this article, we’ll be focusing on training – specifically training for sales professionals. However, the training discussed can be applied to every department and team across disciplines, industries, and whether remote or in-house.
Moving beyond a “trend” or technique, microlearning as a mobile sales training solution is rapidly being adopted as part of a remote sales training philosophy. What is microlearning? It involves meeting your sales team where they are at (remotely and on their mobile device) and providing them with training specifically geared to their position.
Microlearning platforms, including the custom solution offered by Concannon Business Consulting, can be customized to focus on the specific needs of your sales team. They can include not only basic sales techniques and methodologies but also relevant company information and product-specific training. Beyond traditional sales training, microlearning includes only specific and relevant information and is broken into digestible bits of information.
Here are 10 reasons to use microlearning and mobile sales training with your team:
1. Increase Employee Engagement & Teamwork
It seems counterintuitive that a team that is not physically together can build relationships and foster a team environment, but it can! Surprisingly, some people find it easier for remote workers to get along than those working in traditional workplaces. You can often set aside office politics and differing personalities when people aren’t face-to-face. Of course, it starts with management setting the tone with the right work ethic and communication, but online training tools can foster team-building with joint projects and other engaging activities.
2. Improve Communication
Teamwork is built off of excellent communication. Communication is key to any sales team’s success, especially a remote sales team. Communication between each other as well as access to the latest information, products, and market trends ensures everyone is up-to-date and on the same page. Using mobile sales training software will make communicating easier across your team.
3. Access to Courses
On top of improving communication, a mobile sales training program will put your training courses at the fingertips of your entire workforce. Data and training that is readily accessible and can be taken on-the-go will allow your sales team to stay on top of the latest information. Courses could even be accessed during airplane travel – one of the times sales representatives have the most downtime.
4. Focused Content
Microlearning is a way to deliver short, highly focused content and training material. Microlearning involves short interactive sessions where content is more focused and personalized. Many content sessions are broken into lessons 5 minutes or less. It features actionable objectives that help teams master specific responsibilities, job functions, and new product information. Due to this nature, it is well-suited for corporate environments and disparate teams with limited time or resources for training.
5. Consistent Training
Often one of the biggest challenges an organization comes across when training a remote sales force is consistency. If you are offering multiple training sessions, it is difficult to ensure the material and message will be delivered the same each time. You may have different instructors who present the information differently and different groups of people at the trainings create different dynamics and discussions that may steer the message in different directions.
Through the use of approved custom-created microlearning and mobile sales training, you can be sure a consistent message is delivered every time.
6. Quick Training Assessment
With traditional sales training – especially high-value conferences involving travel expenses – it can be difficult to gauge your return on investment. Did the employee retain information? Did they attend conferences? Are they using this information to better their sales process and increase closing rates? It’s nearly impossible to measure. As part of your tailored microlearning platform, you can also create interactive tools (ex: surveys or questionnaires) to assess where your employees are at and where they can use more support and training. You can then direct them back to the appropriate microlearning sessions to revisit specific content.
7. Learn Strengths & Weaknesses
The quick training assessment will also help point out your employee’s strengths and weaknesses. An employer and employee should be aware of both. This allows an employer to individually support and develop the employee. It additionally allows the employee to build on their strengths and also recognize what they can continue to improve on.
8. Upgrade Skills Levels
After learning an employee’s strengths and weaknesses, you have the opportunity to hone and craft their skills. Your mobile sales training program can include courses and resources for employees to access and continue their learning. You can create tutorials to cover many scenarios and build confidence in your employees as they upgrade their sales and product knowledge.
9. Offers Flexibility
On top of your remote workforce being spread out geographically, they are likely on the go, meeting prospective clients and keeping existing clients happy. In order to deliver the most up-to-date information to them and offer them the opportunity to enhance and further their skills, flexibility is key. Offering a mobile sales training program will allow your sales team to access information and training on-demand and on the schedule suited best for them.
10. Adoption & Usability
For those who have managed sales teams in the past, you know that training for sales representatives is not the same type of training required for those in other positions. While others are focused day-to-day task or platform training, sales training is often focused more on motivation, communication efforts, and productivity efforts. When a sales professional is not engaged in their work and training efforts, their performance suffers as does the entire revenue of the company.
Due to the tremendous pressure and focus on performance, it may be difficult to convince sales professionals to change their focus away from clients and customers and towards training
efforts. It’s especially difficult for those seasoned professionals who have been through sales trends and methods and are confident they know all there is to know. For these sales professionals, Microlearning should be viewed as a low-effort tool to boost their product knowledge and keep it sharp as development occurs, rather than as a more traditional (and boring) all-in-one training program. In this use case, Microlearning has a proven track record of success and resonates strongly with both marketing and sales professionals. And as we know well, sales teams are quick to adopt a methodology that is focused and relevant to their position, especially when it helps them sell more effectively.
Concannon Business Consulting (CBC), a full-service consultancy focused on optimizing your learning and training results, is highly experienced in building microlearning programs to achieve organizational goals. Our team will manage a custom mobile sales training and microlearning solution that fits your needs from start to finish. Beyond a microlearning platform, we’ll work with your sales management team to completely customize and develop your sales training solution. Contact us today to set up a consultation or personalized demo experience.
