- Sales reps that receive continuous training
sell 50% more than those who don't keep up
with evolving industry trends.
US companies spend over $20 billion annually
on sales training,
but Hermann Ebbinghaus, a renowned psychologist,
found out that people forget an average of 70%
of the new information that they learn within a day.
And within a week,
they'll remember only 10%.
So how can you help your team retain information?
It's a case of use it or lose it.
Repetition is key.
Make sure your reps incorporate new skills
in their daily sales practices,
or have them regularly share what they've learned
with the rest of their team.
This not only ensures
that they retain everything they learned,
but also ensures your entire sales team
is benefiting from new ideas and strategies.
Here are some learning methods that you can use
to strengthen your team's knowledge retention.
First, reinforcement learning uses tools,
such as quizzes, games, flash cards,
and bite-size content to refresh sales rep's knowledge
each day, quickly and easily.
Role-playing is also a great way
to get your reps thinking about strategies
in real life sales situations.
By regularly reinforcing relevant knowledge,
you ensure that information sticks in your rep's minds,
and becomes a part of their everyday processes.
Elearning is a great way for your reps
to sharpen their sales skills
with entertaining and engaging resources
on their phone or computer.
You might be wondering, what's elearning?
It's training apps, podcasts, webinars,
and online courses like this one.
These can be accessed easily,
they're updated to evolve with our rapidly changing world,
and they're great for microlearning on the go.
Which most people prefer
to being locked in a room for a week
and having their head's crammed with information.
Here's looking at you, poorly done sales kickoffs.
Plus, there are lots of great options out there
to choose from.
And you can even crate your own.
For example, my podcast, Outside Sales Talk,
started out as a way for me to train my sales team
on the skills I thought were really important
for them to have.
Then I published some of it,
and it ended up spreading around by word of mouth.
And that became a free resource
that's pretty widely used by sales people today.
Don't forget that different people
have different learning styles.
Some do better listening,
while some people retain things better visually
or if they have hands-on exercises.
In my experience,
I found a combination of regularly scheduled in-person
and group training sessions,
a steady program of reinforcement exercises,
and a variety of interactive elearning resources
to be the best way for reps to retain what they've learned.
Make sure you regularly provide feedback to your reps
on what they're doing well,
and on areas that they can improve on.
Feedback is crucial to get your reps
to practice necessary skills,
to eliminate bad or outdated habits,
and to help them set priorities going forward.
Another final strategy I like
for teaching a sales team new ideas
is to have someone in your team
that is engaging with great material
do a five or 10-minute summary to the team
on what they've learned.
You can just tack it on to your normal sales meetings.
For example, when one of my reps tells me
they've been reading a great book on sales
or that they came across a great resource,
I can ask them if they could just do a
five-minute book report to the rest of the team.
Now, make a list of the three most important skills
you'd like your team to improve on,
and then find a resource on each skill
that you can provide to them.
Getting your team the learning resources
they need to improve their craft,
will keep them at the top of their game.