2014 In Review: The State of Sales Training

As 2014 comes to a close it’s time to evaluate the year, make resolutions for improvement, and predict what will happen in 2015. To narrow down this monumental task, we’ve decided to focus on the state of sales training in 2014, and make 2015 resolutions for improvement.

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According to a 2014 comprehensive study by Sirius Decisions, 38% of companies still lack a formal sales onboarding process.  Yet, according to the same study, those companies with robust onboarding programs shorten time to rep productivity.

While 2014 was a great year in many ways, but it’s clear that when it comes to Sales support and training, there’s a lot of room for improvement in the coming year. Specifically, there were several clear, yet addressable problems with sales training and content in 2014:

  • Too long and dense
  • Difficult to access on all devices
  • Difficult to locate content pieces across information sources
  • Not pushed out at appropriate moments in the sales cycle
  • Not contextually relevant

Whether it’s Internet Culture or just the way that people have always learned, it’s clear from learning science studies that today people learn better in short, relevant bursts. The fact that 48% of trainers don’t think their content is engaging enough is proof that unfortunately many companies have not implemented content that is attuned to the ways in which people learn best. (For more information on tailoring content to meet Sales attention spans, see our blog post on this topic.)

Perhaps companies are catching on, though. According to a study by Brainshark, 45% of companies are planning to invest in video-based training, and will hopefully listen to the 65% of employees that believe video training should be kept to under ten minutes. Interactive training, short modules, and continued teaching aids and training bursts throughout the sales cycle are the techniques that companies need to start implementing.

Which brings us to our New Year’s resolution: To make 2015 the year in which we help you better your Sales productivity and results through more effective content and training, content tracking, and sales onboarding. For a demonstration of how we can help your sellers reach their New Year’s goals, register here for our upcoming demo.

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Which 2014 ‘Leftovers’ are on your Resolution List?

When we think of the holidays we immediately think of the traditions associated with them. But these winter months also represent rejuvenation and the beginning of a new year. In writing articles about the turn of another year, oftentimes we focus heavily on the future, instead of seeing what things are worth carrying through to 2015. So, in the spirit of a New Year’s Resolution, we’ve decided to take a look at how to use your 2014 leftovers.

While there is always room for self-improvement, when it comes to Sales Enablement, there are definitely traditions worth bringing with us to the New Year.

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  1. 1. Marketing and Sales teamwork: In a 2013 CMO survey, 72% of respondents said that their Sales and Marketing teams work together on an equal basis. Now, that doesn’t mean that this partnership is perfect in most companies (far from it), but it does show that organizations are aware of the necessity for teamwork between the two departments.
  2. 2. Make Onboarding a priority: 71% of respondents to a 2013 Impact Instruction Group survey said that they are currently in the process of reevaluating their onboarding program. Because of the abysmal stats surrounding retention and onboarding, many companies are reevaluating their programs and making onboarding a priority.
  3. 3. Emphasize Good Content: A recent VentureBeat article explored how many successful companies are letting up on content marketing in favor of sales enablement. The two are hardly mutually exclusive, but because both deserve significant investment, it’s nice to see that companies are leveling the playing field between content marketing and content that can be used to improve sales.
  4. 4. Putting The Customer First: The amount that marketers and sales reps know about their prospects/customers has increased enormously in recent years. With this influx of data has come a customer-centric movement in which marketers and sales reps personalize their approaches and sell from a position of knowledge. Having reps and marketers who are knowledgeable about their customers has become essential to any successful company. As Sheryl Pattek of Forrester Research so adeptly said, “Today’s market realities demand that B2B CMOs replace internal sales-driven marketing funnels with a full customer-life-cycle approach that aligns with the ways customers now make purchase decisions and build relationships with their vendors.”
  5. 5. Utilize Enablement Tools: Finding that sweet spot between the technological and the human is essential for every company. Sales enablement tools don’t take over the human part of training or assisting (such as coaching or writing proposals); rather, they streamline the work that Marketing, Training and Sales teams do so that reps can improve their productivity and effectiveness. This year, the marketing tool landscape exploded, and with it, sales enablement tools came further into the forefront of companies’ consciousness. Organizations are seeing the necessity of enabling their sales teams, and they’re using great tools to do it.

    6. There are many fantastic things that we can reuse post-holidays. The start of a new year should bring with it new resolutions, ideas, and products, but these should all be brought in on a foundation of the best of last year’s leftovers.

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Which has a Longer Attention Span: Your Sales Rep or a Goldfish?

A: The Goldfish

According to a 2013 study done by the National Center For Biotechnology Information, the average human attention span is eight seconds, or one second less than the average attention span of a goldfish. This is a four second second drop from 2010, a decrease which many attribute to our modern, stimulating Internet culture.

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Now, try and imagine a goldfish reading through a 40 page PDF playbook.

Can’t do it? Then why are sales reps expected to?

The truth, of course, is that this statistic is slightly skewed; it’s true that human “transient attention”—a short term response to an event—is only eight seconds, but “focused attention,” which is what sales reps are hopefully using when reading content aids, is more like 10 minutes. That’s more than a goldfish, but still shockingly low.

Taking this into account, trainers and marketers need to ensure that their assets won’t require a rep to focus intensely for more than 10 minutes—or even better, five.

To maximize sellers’ retention and absorption of information, marketers and trainers should:

  1. 1. Train in short bursts spaced throughout the buying cycle
  2. 2. Keep training down to 3-5 minutes
  3. 3. Limit content to 300 a words at a time
  4. 4. Use plain language that is easy to understand, not business jargon

Sellers are also more likely to engage in “focused attention,”—the type that can last for up to 10 minutes—if the information they’re being fed is contextually relevant. This means pushing out training aids and content assets that are appropriate to the type of prospect the rep is dealing with, and the stage of the funnel that they’re in. Humans tend to move information into long-term memory when there is a contextual stimulus (source).

To avoid the unfavorable comparison between humans and goldfish, marketers and trainers can use learning science to get the best out of human memory. Our brains are incredibly complex—much more complex than that of a goldfish. When creating sales support, we just have to tap into the most effective techniques for maximum learning and retention.

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Brandon Hall Group Names MobilePaks Bronze Winner

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MobilePaks is excited to announce it was named a bronze winner in the Brandon Hall Group Technology Excellence Awards in an online event today. MobilePaks was recognized for its excellence in the “Best Advance in Sales Enablement and Performance Tools” category.

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CMO.com Features CEO, Chanin Ballance

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“Marketing’s Role Doesn’t End At Lead Handoff” writes Chanin Ballance in today’s CMO.com. She continues, “The lead handoff process has traditionally been conducted like a relay race, with leads passed from marketing to sales like a baton that needs to reach the finish line. However, this approach has not only caused significant finger-pointing between the two groups, it also results in a good number of leads failing to blossom into quality customer relationships.”

To read the full article, please visit CMO.com

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How to Tailor Channel Education for Optimal Sales Effectiveness

In our most recent blog post, we discussed tailoring channel education to the stage of their engagement as a means for deepening and strengthening channel relationships – and dividends from those relationships. In today’s article, we will dive into greater detail, sharing concrete ways to do just that.

There are typically three critical stages to channel partner enablement: onboarding, intermediate and long-term. Support content and information should ideally be tailored to each of these specific parts of the channel life cycle.

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Onboarding

The onboarding stage typically takes place in the first 90 days and involves a host of introductory activities such as delivering product information, beginning-stage training, and introductions to processes and workflows. Sharing information that is directly relevant to your channel partner and their needs increases credibility and helps foster a deeper relationship. Starting the relationship on the right footing is critical to success.

Intermediate

Channel partners in the intermediate stage (between 90 days and one year) have different needs. At this point, the assets you provide your partner should be tailored to helping address their buying cycles and demand type.

Training is an ongoing process, and striking the correct communication balance is key. It is easy for sellers of any type – channel partners included – to feel overwhelmed with content. Instead of focusing on frequency and amount, focus on creating quality, prescriptive content that includes examples and explanations. Because less is oftentimes more, focus on making content easy to consume.

Long-Term

Long-term channel partners are those that have been with you for more than a year and are likely prime candidates for services and programs such as cross-selling and product blending. These partners may have developed specializations; if that is the case, engage them further with domain knowledge to develop them into specialists in a specific geographic area or vertical. Black belt programs are another option which allow partners to obtain in-depth information about products and services, helping make them even stronger sellers (and more valuable partners).

Across each of these three key phases, it is important to actively solicit feedback. Using products like MobilePaks, we recommend that you integrate a seamless feedback mechanism into your engagement materials, allowing partner employees to rate and comment on the assets you provide. And then act on that feedback. Assess whether the feedback is relevant, if change is possible or practical, and respond to their concerns. And, with positive feedback, assess where and how you can replicate this success.

Last, track and measure critical pieces of information such as channel partner participation rates, the quantity and types of training and reference aids they consumed, and whether the sales tools you’ve provided are a good fit for your partners’ needs.

Data like this can help you identify improvements needed, as well as spot leading sales indicators of success. Detecting those patterns is the first step to making any necessary course changes. Once you have created an optimal, repeatable model that is still flexible enough to accommodate different needs, you are well on your way to boosting your partners’ sales effectiveness and everyone’s bottom line.

For additional information on how to maximize Channel Partnerships, take a read through our brief on the topic.

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MobilePaks Announces Sales Playbooks of the 21st Century Webinar

Chanin Ballance, CEO, and Rich Rudolph, EVP Sales, Present How to Modernize Sales Playbooks and Make them an Indispensable Tool to Boost Performance

Portland, Ore. – December 3, 2014 – MobilePaks, an award-winning cloud-based marketing and sales enablement tool, today announced its latest Webinar, “Sales Playbooks of the 21st Century”. Sales playbooks are one of the most effective sales assets yet, far too many of them are difficult to digest, retain and use. In this presentation, MobilePaks will share how building a modular, interactive playbook informed by learning science not only makes the information easier to retain but far more likely to help sellers in a real selling environment.

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Who: MobilePaks CEO, Chanin Balance and EVP Sales, Rich Rudolph

Where: Attendees may register at: http://bit.ly/1F7oJG4

When: Wednesday, December 10, 2014 10:00 am (Pacific Standard Time)

Presenting: Attendees will be presented with:

  • • The basics of human learning and why this matters to successful playbook design
  • • Three must haves for turbo-charging retention and use
  • • Leveraging technology to maximize your playbook investment

About MobilePaks
MobilePaks helps companies improve selling effectiveness and productivity with tools for developing and delivering sales content and support. Using an exclusive Retention Science-based approach, MobilePaks is the only system that helps organizations create content based on the way sellers learn, retain and apply information. The MobilePaks Relevance Engine™ automatically delivers this dynamic content and support based on the sales stage, prospect type and preferences of sellers and managers, measurably improving selling conversations. Based in Portland, OR, MobilePaks can be found at www.veeloinc.wpstagecoach.com or @mobilepaks.

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5 Tips for Better Enabling your Channel

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Channel partnerships can be productive relationships, with increased revenue and market share for everybody. Yet, research by Sirius Decisions indicates that although most channel organizations partner with six or seven suppliers, they only actively sell for one or two.

Here are 5 tips from companies who nurture successful partnerships:

  1. 1) Make it easy for your partners to find information
    New partners are often sent a link to a portal, with the expectation that they’ll be able to find everything they need. However, studies show that portals average 18% engagement, with many as low as 5%. Unfortunately portals are often cluttered and disorganized, making them difficult to navigate. These barriers don’t just discourage users, they increase the odds of salespeople creating their own resources, or accidentally using outdated information.
  2. 2) Think push and pull
    Augment a static portal with content management technology that enables the “push” of real-time updates and automatic recommendations, as well as “pull,” or on- demand search. Many technologies, such as Guided Selling, can now auto-suggest content based on contextually-relevant data, such as prospect information, product, transaction type and/or the stage of the buying cycle.
  3. 3) Create content that facilitates customer engagement
    Create and include aids in your channel portal that help drive valuable customer conversations. While there may be a time for product features and benefits, focus first and foremost on aids such as conversation guides that follow the buying cycle. E.g. early stage differentiation, mid-stage executive positioning and later stage negotiation examples.
  4. 4) Be mobile friendly
    With a whopping 60% of channel sellers using mobile as their primary means to access vendor information, the resources your partners access need to be responsive in design and compatible with all major devices. Focus on designing user interfaces and content usable by the lowest common denominator devices, such as a smartphone with a small display; and make sure that the content is easy to interact with on the small screen as well. Too much navigation or data entry, for example, can be difficult on the small screen.
  5. 5) Tailor education to the stage of their engagement
    There are typically three critical stages to channel partner enablement: onboarding, intermediate and long-term. Support content and information should ideally be tailored to the specific part of the channel life cycle. This is such an important point, that we will delve into it further in our next blog post. Stay tuned for it.

    6. While vying for channel partner mindshare is a challenge, keep one overarching principle in mind: make it easy. Make your portal easy to navigate by keeping the content organized and accessible. Make learning and assimilating easy for your partners by tailoring their education to the appropriate stage of their engagement. And, remember that relevant information in the hands of informed salespeople not only helps them to stay engaged and on-message, but drives richer engagement with prospects, better selling conversations, and greater revenues for you and your partners.

    For additional information on how to maximize Channel Partnerships, take a read through our brief on the topic.

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