A great blog post regarding sales on-boarding from SiriusDecisions points to the importance of mobile technologies, guided selling and mLearning.
- Guided selling. Technology can be deployed within an SFA system that suggests the best next steps, activities and assets (e.g. presentation templates, ROI calculators) based on information that the rep has entered in an opportunity record. Because suggestions are built using best practices (ideally leveraging what the organization’s top performers do), guided-selling applications can act as virtual mentors, allowing new reps to benefit from the best reps’ experience and wisdom. Some guided selling solutions offer virtual coaching, alerting reps to missing information or other issues that could put a deal in jeopardy. These tools also can track what steps new reps took and what assets they utilized during the selling process, allowing managers to review this information and hold additional in-person coaching sessions if needed.
- Mobile technology. Just-in-time training in the field (e.g. having reps review best practices shortly before an important sales call) should reinforce (rather than replace) structured learning approaches. For example, reps might watch a short video (e.g. less than five minutes) that models how to position a certain offering, or listen to a brief podcast that reviews core messaging. Design just-in-time learning modules so that they can be consumed via mobile devices while reps are in the field. Some vendors offer technology specifically designed to support learning on mobile devices.
While I agree with the importance of guided selling, the curation of content that works at any given sales stage requires analytics that can mine the data of what experts in sales are using to engage with customers. Most SFA & CRM systems do not have this functionality out-of-the-box. Content Intelligence is feature found in bigtincan hub that enables sale professionals to be more effective when engage customers with content.
The concept of just in-time training on a mobile device, or as it's commonly referred to as mLearning, is really about embedded micro-training content into sales process (like pre-call prep). It's a much more effective way of training today's sales rep because learning happens right at the mobile moment of need!
