Sales Training Materials for the Real World: What’s In It for the Sellers?

Better Sales Training MaterialsThe question all sales trainers need to keep foremost in mind when creating training and support content is “How will this help the seller in the real world?”

Because if you’re not asking yourselves that question, your trainees sure will. When trainers and managers tell sales reps to read fifty-page PDFs, attend seminars that span days, or undergo all-day testing, the materials need to make clear what’s in it for the seller, or the reality is, they’ll tune out.

Try these three tips on how to create training content that better engages sellers and prepares them for real selling situations:

  1. Ensure the content is relevant and in-context
    Making your sales reps sift through a portal with hundreds of files (some of which are probably outdated) pretty much guarantees they’ll try once, maybe twice before giving up. Your sales enablement solution should predictively recommend materials that are directly relevant to the prospect the rep is talking to and the stage of the sales cycle they’re in.
  2. Keep it short and sweet
    Long-form, bulky content can easily overwhelm the seller’s working memory. Short bursts of information, ideally reinforced and refreshed at recurring intervals, are much easier to absorb and apply.
  3. Make it interactive
    People learn better when they’re interacting with their material. Whether this means being creative, such as writing a script for a possible scenario, taking quizzes, or even watching a video of behavior they can model, it’s essential to engage your sales reps with the sales enablement content you’re providing.

Sales training materials that meet these three criteria will help transform them from tiresome obligations into assets that sellers will consult and depend on. And don’t under-estimate the power of good support content! It can have an immediate, concrete impact. Our customers have told us that the confidence boost from reviewing deal-specific information right before a call has helped their sellers hold better selling conversations—which in turn has resulted to better sales effectiveness and shorter sales cycles.

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The Science of Sales Enablement at ATD ICE 2015

When the average human attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish, and only 32% of salespeople describe their training programs as effective, we know it’s time to rethink the way we teach.

The Science of Sales Enablement at ATD ICE 2015A lot of sales training right now just plain doesn’t work, because many programs rely on outdated methods and outright myths, while ignoring the science of how people learn. One of our missions is to show you how to deliver training that’s based on how sellers learn, remember and use information, because understanding the ways that people learn allows us to make intelligent, informed improvements.

To that end, MobilePaks CEO Chanin Ballance and Corporate Visions Chief Strategy and Marketing Office Tim Riesterer will be presenting “The Science of Sales Enablement” at this year’s ATD International Conference and Expo. They’ll cover not only how sales enablement works, but why, as well as provide plenty of actionable advice for how to help your salespeople have better selling conversations. If you’re going, you should sign up.

Not going to attend ATD ICE, but still interested in the science of sales enablement? Check out our series of blog posts on how to more effectively practice sales skills and how you can incorporate that into your sales training:

Part 1: The Problem with Illusions
Part 2: Debunking Popular Myths
Part 3: Better Ways to Level Up

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Smarter Practice Methods for Sales Enablement Part 3: Better Ways to Level Up

If you haven’t yet read the first two parts of this series, you might find the context useful. Check them out:

Part 1: The Problem with Illusions
Part 2: Debunking Popular Myths

This final section doesn’t talk about any old kind of practice. We want to show you how to practice knowledge and skills that are generalizable across a wide range of business-related applications, such as adapting to changing situations.

Tip #1: Interleaving: A Better Way to Practice

interleaving

As we’ve noted in Part 2, randomly interleaving related skills while practicing provides bigger and more lasting gains. This is actually good news for those of you who have to train sales teams. Salespeople just don’t plain have the time for uninterrupted block practice. Give them short bursts that they can squeeze in between calls or other lulls.

Make the most of the training period by providing quick, interactive exercises: flashcards, a training video with behavior they can model, a quick quiz, or even a role-playing exercise. Vary some old material with new, so your sellers can refresh their memory on the old material while working on absorbing new material.

Speaking of which:

Tip #2: Space Out Your Learning and Provide Reminders

Memory storage vs. retrieval

You’ve probably experienced something like this. You’re telling your friends about an amazing April Fool’s prank from ninth grade. Some kid sneaked into the school after hours and wrapped a classroom in tinfoil. Chairs, desks, teacher’s table, chalk, erasers: everything. She almost got expelled, but every kid in school high-fived her. You say, “She was a legend, uh… Michelle? No. That’s not it. Nell? No. Melissa? Melinda? Melinda’s kinda close….”

You give up, but the hole where the name should be nags at you. Then one night, while you’re watching TV, you blurt out “EMILY LABREESE!” and startle your cat.

The point of this story is that a surprising amount of information you think you’ve forgotten hasn’t actually gone away. It’s just difficult to access in the moment you need it. Accessing those memories is known as memory retrieval, and the more practice you have at retrieving a particular piece of information, the better you get at it, and the more readily you can access it under different situations—including high-stress occasions.

Notice that it’s different than actually forgetting something. When you forget something, your brain just plain didn’t write it into longer-term storage. They’re separate processes. However, lack of retrieval practice can render the information effectively inaccessible simply because it can’t be brought back—until you get a reminder, for example.

send all the reminders

Spaced reminders: effective memory retrieval practice

With that in mind, build lots of memory retrieval opportunities into your sales training and space them out over time. We all know by now the dire statistics about boot camps and annual training sessions that drown people in an onslaught of information. 70% forgotten after a week. 90% after a month.

We’re not saying ditch these training sessions entirely, since they provide team-building and bonding opportunities (though we do recommend toning down the information firehose). Instead, provide reinforcement and retrieval practice in the days and weeks after. Knowledge checks, flashcards and quizzes do a fantastic job of helping sellers retrieve information stored in their memory banks. Quizzes and knowledge checks are especially useful because they can help dispel the fluency illusion, as well as provide useful ways for sellers to practice their memory retrieval.

Experts quibble on the ideal intervals between refreshers, but a popular sequence is to set them on the second, seventh and thirtieth days after a learning session. Some software, like MobilePaks KnowledgeBoost™, allows you to automatically schedule and assign retrieval practice from pre-determined quiz banks and materials. An added benefit to these sorts of systems: you’ll be able to see how individuals did, and spot coaching gaps before they become a problem.

Tip #3: Provide the Practice in Readily Accessible Formats

The mobile workforce isn’t a thing on the horizon—it’s already here. Workers switch between laptop, tablet and phone all the time, multiple times a day, depending on their location and their need. Providing practice that’s available on all devices, wherever the seller might be while on the job, provides two distinct benefits:

1. It increases the likelihood the sellers will actually do it.
2. You can take advantage of the effect of environmental context on memory.

Increasing the Likelihood of Use

We’ve already pointed out that sellers don’t have time for long blocks of uninterrupted practice. You know what else sellers don’t have time (or patience) for? Hopping into a content portal or learning management system (that may or may not work on the device they’re using) just to access their training.

Find a solution that lives where your sellers are already spending a lot of their time, and that plays well with all devices. Ideally, this would mean integrating with your CRM (if you happen to use one), but a browser-based solution is also perfectly workable.

MobilePaks is compatible with all devices and operating systems

The Effect of Environmental Context on Memory

In an ingenious study, scientists made deep-sea divers listen to lists of random words in two different contexts: one group on land, and one deep underwater. Afterwards, they tested those divers, some in the same context as when they heard the words, and some in a different setting. The results? Those who heard the lists on dry land remembered more when on dry land, and those who received the lists underwater remembered more underwater.

This is known as the environmental reinstatement effect, and it has powerful implications for business learning. Classroom learning provides a lot of value, because it provides excellent opportunities for discussion and intellectual exploration, but you really want to take advantage of on-the-job practice so your sellers ultimately remember what’s most important when they need it most: a real selling context. Giving sellers on-demand opportunities for memory retrieval practice while at work can significantly impact recall. Support and training that’s readily available so sellers can refresh right before hopping on a call, or a meeting, can boost retention even further.

Conclusion

We hope you’ve found this series helpful! As we noted all the way back in Part 1, ain’t nobody got time for traditional blocked practice when you’re a seller—and those methods don’t work well for practicing business skills. Instead, use short bursts of interleaved practice spaced out over time to your advantage, as well as the power of environmental reinstatement. Provide lots of opportunities for sellers to practice different sets of capabilities on the job, and ultimately you’ll provide them with the reflexes they’ll need to fumble less, remember more—and sell more effectively.

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See Us at the SiriusDecisions Summit in Nashville

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” That’s what Benjamin Franklin said, and we’re taking that to heart. With hundreds of fellow B2B leaders, over 50 analyst sessions, and, most importantly, a chance to hear Magic Johnson talk about more than basketball, we are so front row at this year’s SiriusDecisions Summit.

The conference will be held at the gorgeous Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville over four days. It promises to be an eclectic event, with lots of opportunities for fun (a block party in downtown Nashville!) and even more opportunities to learn (over a hundred sessions and case study presentations to choose from). Combining fun and work is only fitting, since people learn best in dynamic learning environments.

MobilePaks will also be participating in this learning + fun synergy at our booth, where we will ask sales enablement professionals to answer a short survey in exchange for a $25 Amazon gift card. Spend 15 minutes talking about sales effectiveness challenges, then go on a mini online shopping spree.

If you’re going to be there, stop by Booth 225 to say hi and grab a brain-shaped stress ball. We’re really looking forward to a week of learning from, interacting with, and hopefully even teaching something to fellow B2B leaders.

SiriusDecisions15_Marketplace_Map

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MobilePaks Helps Corporate Visions Deliver Powerful Sales Enhancement Skills Solution

Designed to improve knowledge retention, selling conversations and sales performance

MobilePaks Guided Selling is the driving force behind the Corporate Visions Virtual Coach, which enhances sales skills by providing relevant content based on sales stage.

May 4, 2015 – Portland, Ore. — MobilePaks, an award-winning cloud-based marketing and sales enablement tool, today announced that Corporate Visions’ new Virtual Coach platform is powered by MobilePaks exclusive Guided SellingTM and Relevance Engine™ technology.

“We’re excited to be a part of Corporate Visions’ new Virtual Coach offering,” said Chanin Ballance, CEO of MobilePaks. “Our MobilePaks software packages Corporate Visions’ content into short, engaging bites of information that predictively appear in the CRM to help reinforce key sales behaviors at each stage of the sales cycle. This real-time coaching helps to reinforce Corporate Visions’ offering for its premier customer accounts.”

Corporate Visions, the leading marketing and sales messaging, tools and training company, announced the launch of its Virtual Coach offering today. “With Virtual Coach, salespeople can access short, powerful and situationally-relevant audio, videos and interactive coaching,” said Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and marketing officer for Corporate Visions. “MobilePaks’ retention science approach greatly improves retention and reinforcement of our skills training and ultimately leads to more effective sales conversations.”

MobilePaks Relevance Engine uses data from the prospect type, sales stage, sales role, content ratings, unified selling history and tagging to instantly recommend relevant support. With intelligent recommendations and powerful on-demand search, sales efficiencies go up, including a more than 25 percent increase in core selling time and a 33 percent improvement in selling conversations.

Media Contact:
Rachel Weikum
rweikum@veeloinc.wpstagecoach.com
503.970.4869

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Smarter Practice Methods for Sales Enablement Part 2: Debunking Popular Myths

Smarter Practice Methods for Sales Enablement Part 2: Debunking Popular Myths

Sales Training Myths debunked
In the first part of this series, we talked about how the fluency illusion is an insidious hurdle we need to overcome when trying to achieve true competency in a skill. To recap: the fluency illusion is the over-estimation of one’s competency and depth of knowledge, oftentimes fueled by the false impression that just because something comes easily now, that it’ll be equally accessible later.

Are you ready for the bad news? Two of the most popular myths about practice might actually exacerbate the fluency illusion.

The 10,000-Hour Rule: More Guideline than Rule

In his bestselling 2005 book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell popularized the idea that success required 10,000 hours of dedicated, deliberate practice. The idea took the world by storm, and it’s undeniably appealing: if you want something enough, if you work hard enough, you could master it.

And then came late 2014. A host of doom-and-gloom headlines proclaimed the 10,000-Hour Rule dead. “Don’t Waste Your Time,” said Bloomberg. “New Study Destroys 10,000 Hour Rule” declared Business Insider.

The actual study’s pronouncements are more modest—with some interesting implications for sales enablement and training. In examining 88 studies that test the practice-performance connection, the researchers found that gains from practice vary greatly depending on what you’re practicing for. Practice made a significant difference in games (26%) and music (21%), but almost none in professions (1%).

26% vs. 1%. That’s a mind-blowing gap, and the Business Insider article provides an insight into why: dedicated practice might make more of a difference in fields where the rules and situations you might encounter are relatively stable, such as chess, or classical music. Business settings, on the other hand, can fluctuate from moment to moment, which means being able to seize opportunities and improvise could give more of an edge.

Which is an excellent but incomplete insight, because the meta-analysis doesn’t tell us how the workers practiced their professional skills—and how, it turns out, is every bit as important as how long. Don’t chuck practice out the window!

Practicing for Long, Uninterrupted Blocks Doesn’t Get You There Faster

Repetition and practice are indisputably necessary for learning, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that researchers seriously started studying whether different types of practice would make a difference in how fast people could pick up on new skills and improve. What works better: practicing new skills one at a time for a block of time? Practicing new skills in a set sequence? Or practicing those skills in a random order?

What they’ve found, over, and over, and over again, is that uninterrupted, unvarying stretches of practice provide faster gains only in the practice context. Varying the practice by mixing it up with different but related tasks slowed the apparent rate of skill acquisition during practice but maximized performance in the long term. In fact, the more randomly varied the practice, the bigger the improvement.

In other words, blocked practice gives the illusion of proficiency (sound familiar?) and strengthened performance mostly within a structured, familiar context. Varied practice, on the other hand—oftentimes referred to as interleaved practice—works better not only for long-term skill retention (potentially by helping to dispel the fluency illusion), but also making it easier to apply those skills in real-world situations by providing opportunities to deal with chaos and uncertainty.

How do you apply these findings to sales training? Find out in the final part of this blog series, where we walk you through the implications and give you some concrete tips on how to start implementing smarter training and practice methods for your sales teams.

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