Shift the Sales Skill Bell Curve with Support in the CRM

Shift the sales skill bell curve with proper sales support

When you look at sales skill variance in a sales team, you’ll probably see a normal distribution. About 60% of the salespeople will fall in the range where their performance meets—or is very close to meeting—expectations and quota, but still have lots of room for improvement. The two ends of the curve hold the outliers: the 20% of employees who are floundering, and the 20% who are superstars.

Improving the sales skills for the middle 60% can have the biggest impact on performance (and revenue). Even if the gains are modest—say, 5%—you’ll still see significant impacts from these incremental gains, just because there are so many of them.

The good news: this group is relatively easy to work with. You don’t have to worry as much about job fit, the way you’d have to with the bottom 20%. Odds are good that they’re as eager to improve as you are. You need to keep them excited to learn and improve, and give them the tools that empower them to do their best work.

The Importance of Ongoing Reinforcement and Coaching

After initial training, reps who do not receive additional sales skill training will forget the majority of what they learned within just one month. This isn’t just a waste of training dollars, it actively pushes sellers towards the bottom of the curve.

Just-in-time support delivered within the selling context can help pull them back up by combating learning decay. Some software, such as guided selling, integrates various types of memory boosts and training content into the CRM. The best systems predictively serve up contextual aids to help jog recall, and offer collateral and training directly related to the deal at hand, including sales stage. Not only does this system help keep reps on-message, and it also improves rep confidence because they know they have the content that will make the biggest impact.

According to a study by the Aberdeen Group, 84% of the highest performing sales teams provide some form of coaching to under-performing reps. The realities of modern selling, however, make it impossible for your sales managers and sales trainers to provide one-on-one coaching. However, a just-in-time support framework can provide virtual coaching that’s not just available whenever your sellers need them, but that’s tailored to their unique opportunities and situations.

Conclusion

Boosting the sales skill effectiveness for the middlin’ performers requires ongoing training and coaching. You want to make the training as much a part of their daily workflow as possible, which means integrating your support within their selling context to help drive usage and automatically provide information relevant to their immediate needs. A robust guided selling solution that gives your salespeople what they based on sales stage and opportunity, instead of pulling them out of their workflow and forcing them to log into yet another service, will go a long way towards transforming your average performers into stars.

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“5 Ways to Boost CRM Effectiveness” Published in Enterprise App Today

5 Ways to Boost CRM Effectiveness

CRM software is invaluable for managing customers and prospects, but you can boost CRM effectiveness for your salespeople even more with sales enablement tools.

To keep up with fast-paced changes in large organizations, a growing number of companies are relying on sales enablement tools. Sales asset management, just-in-time training and guided selling are among the functions of these tools. They basically act as a coach to match prospect information—whether a contact, lead or opportunity—and prompt relevant sales conversations along with customer-facing content crucial to making a sale.

Read “5 Ways to Boost CRM Effectiveness,” which includes actionable tips on how you can use CRMs to drive better selling conversations, on Enterprise App Today.

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MobilePaks Releases Advancements for Authoring, Converting & Delivering Content to Enhance Sales Performance

December 21, 2015 – Portland, Ore. – MobilePaks, an award-winning marketing and sales enablement technology leader, is advancing the functionality of its flagship application with enhanced content authoring and editing capabilities. Built on learning science principles, MobilePaks enables sales content to be developed quickly and delivered in ways that leverage memory-boosting features to improve sales performance.

New MobilePaks content authoring and editing tools enhance sales performance

With their intuitive design, the product enhancements guide marketing and sales leaders on how to easily create and/or convert content into short training bursts sellers can remember more effectively, increasing their sales success. Sales teams receive actionable guidance in the selling context, ensuring it can be quickly understood, and fostering a higher likelihood that they will put the information the information into use right away.

“We’ve built this tool using learning science principles. Information is delivered through relevant, short, interactive knowledge bursts, called ‘Paks.’ When aligned with marketing content, it’s proven to be very effective at reinforcing desired sales behavior—helping sellers better position, qualify and sell,” says Chanin Ballance, CEO of MobilePaks.

MobilePaks makes creating and editing interactive content easy

Research shows that salespeople are 50% more likely to use quick refreshers or access information if they can do it in fewer than 5 minutes. In-context performance support measurably improves seller confidence and their ability to demonstrate value in a sale. Popular content types include sales playbooks modules, product information, buyer persona tips, discovery talk tracks, sales skill reinforcement, and more. To maximize retention, the content must be easy to understand, preferably served up in small chunks, and relevant to what sellers need in the moment.

MobilePaks has helped numerous organizations enhance sales performance. These newest features improve usability, making it faster for content creators to quickly and easily assemble engaging bursts of information. Creators can add short videos, audio clips, graphs, interactive exercises and memory boosters—all with a few clicks. Content is easily integrated with the CRM using the Guided Selling® product and/or used in the sales training environment for onboarding, blended learning and on-demand support. The dynamic content can be easily edited in real time with a simple click.

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Coaching the Coaches: Onboarding New Hires Faster and More Effectively

How Gazelles International used MobilePaks to get their coaches up to speed in record time

Onboarding new hires faster and more effectively with MobilePaks

Onboarding new hires is all about getting them up to speed and productive as soon as possible. Trainers and managers are increasingly turning to knowledge management tools to increase ramp time and competency for almost all positions.

Take Gazelles, a world-renowned coaching association for executive business coaches. They’re constantly recruiting and introducing new talent to their organization. However, they rapidly ran into a scaling problem with their onboarding process, which was largely manual and inefficient, plus they weren’t able to effectively able to monitor training or measure coach competency.

Like many companies, much of the onboarding training was provided in-classroom. Gazelles ran two-day sessions, with the first day consisting mostly a review of pre-class assignments, typically links to articles or videos distributed via email.

Enter MobilePaks.

Gazelles used KnowledgeBoost to completely reengineer their process for onboarding new hires, and as a result:

  • Reduced onboarding program management expense by 25%
  • Improved time-to-competency for coaches by 20%
  • Provided insights into leading indicators of coaching success

KnowledgeBoost allowed Gazelles to use a “flipped classroom” model, in which the trainees complete readings and pre-classroom exercises before the instructor-led training. Because of the pre-training assignments, the master trainer used live classroom time to tackle practice scenarios and more complex topics. As a result, master trainers were able to delve deeper into the materials.

New coaches could access short training bursts and support on-demand—including post-classroom memory boosts—from any device, which improved engagement and use. Not only did they achieve competency faster, but program ratings were far higher compared to previous training programs.

The results accord with established learning science findings and principles. For example: very little is recalled 90 days following the initial learning event, but review and reinforcement help the knowledge stick—which was how the short modules created in KnowledgeBoost vastly improved the training results for Gazelles.

KnowledgeBoost also allowed Gazelles to monitor content usage and assignment completion, which helped master trainers ensure everyone was the same page, while knowledge checks and quizzes allowed them to grade competency and identify knowledge gaps.

Once coaches are officially on boarded and working in the field, Gazelles expects to further improve its program. “We are sold on the MobilePaks value” said Cindy Kraft, Operations Director at Gazelles International. “So much so that we will expand its use, allowing our coaches to stay up-to-date on key concepts that support our recertification process.”

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MobilePaks wins Silver Award for the 2015 Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award in Technology

MobilePaks wins a coveted Brandon Hill Group Silver award for excellence in the Best Advance in Sales Enablement and Performance Tools category

December 7, 2015 – Portland, Ore – MobilePaks, a leader in innovative marketing and sales enablement technology, won a coveted Brandon Hill Group Silver award for excellence in the Best Advance in Sales Enablement and Performance Tools category. MobilePaks’ win was announced on December 3, 2015. No gold was awarded in the category, since two companies tied for silver.

Chanin Ballance, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of MobilePaks, says, “Our team developed a great product and we are proud to be recognized with one of the most prestigious awards in the industry. We consistently raise the bar with creating products to increase seller effectiveness and productivity.”

“Our award winners are the most visionary and innovative developers of HCM technology solutions that move organizations forward in serving employees, customers and investors,” says Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, who runs the awards program. “I think everyone can learn from the achievements of our award recipients.”

“These award-winning solutions were closely evaluated by our judges for not only their innovation, but the real results they brought to the organizations,” Brandon Hall Group Chief Executive Office Mike Cooke said. “That is what makes our technology awards program special—connecting creativity and innovation to direct business results.

A panel of veteran independent senior industry experts, as well as Brandon Hall Group senior analysts and executives, evaluated the entries based on the following criteria:

  • Product: What was the product’s breakthrough innovation?
  • Unique Differentiators: What makes the product unique and how does it differ from any competing products?
  • Value proposition: What problem does the product solve and/or what need does this product address?
  • Measurable results: What are the benefits customers can expect to experience as a result of using this product?

All the 2015 winners are listed in the Past Winners gallery.

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. Based in Portland, OR.

About Brandon Hall Group, Inc.

With more than 10,000 clients globally and 20 years of delivering world class research and advisory services, Brandon Hall Group is the most well-known and established research organization in the performance improvement industry. We conduct research that drives performance, and provides strategic insights for executives and practitioners responsible for growth and business results.

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Brandon Hall Group Awards Silver to MobilePaks

MobilePaks wins Silver for the Best Advance in Sales Enablement and Performance Tools in the Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Awards

MobilePaks is a recipient of a silver medal in the “Best Advance in Sales Enablement and Performance Tools” category for the Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology awards. No gold was awarded this year. We are pleased and honored to have been recognized by one of the most prestigious awards in the sales enablement and training space.

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