Creating custom learning experiences for sales teams and how immersive learning can cut to your chase and deliver results quickly.
Sales professionals are the frontline ambassadors of a company, tasked with the crucial responsibility of converting leads into loyal customers. To excel in this role, sales teams require more than just product knowledge and charisma to navigate an ever-evolving market.
High-performing sales teams are not built overnight. It’s a process of continuous learning and discovery to offer value at every stage of the customer’s buying journey.
The significance of training and development, the role of technology, and the importance of personalized learning for the sales team cannot be overstated.
Sales training needs to be agile, dynamic, and targeted. And, in today’s fast-paced world, relying only on traditional training methods does little to stay ahead of the competition and deliver top-notch performance. Further, the transformative potential of deploying immersive learning strategies such as gamification, virtual reality (VR), and video-coaching learning modes cannot be ignored. These innovative approaches not only engage and motivate sales teams but also provide them with realistic and practical scenarios for honing their skills.
Did you know that 19.8% of an employee’s time – the equivalent of one day per week – is wasted in searching for information to do their job effectively? Specific to the sales role, these workers spend 33% of their time on research!
Where is the gap, and how can this be plugged?
As organizations are growing in leaps and bounds, it’s time for sales training and sales enablement efforts to evolve and keep up. Through strategic and mindful L&D efforts, you can ensure the sales team is more productive and effective. There’s no doubt that immersive sales enablement training drives behavior change. L&D Managers must create and deliver value in training programs to get sales excited and is worth their time.
Needs Analysis—Understanding When to Use Immersive Learning & Other Technologies
More often than not gamification is introduced into the learning strategy only to grab attention and indulge in short-term gains. Slowly and steadily, L&D loses its plot. Understanding when and how to use the right training modality is crucial, and the first step to unlocking this is through a needs analysis. Identify learning challenges and evaluate modalities that best align with your learning outcomes and will appeal to all your learners. When used correctly, immersive training modalities will empower sales professionals to thrive in their demanding roles.
Whether it is for sales coaching, skills development, sales accelerator training and beyond, consider modalities that fosters a culture of continuous learning and growth, ultimately paving the way for enhanced sales performance and sustainable business success.
Video-based and AI Coaching
Video-based coaching helps evaluate responses to assigned scenarios and ace communication. Dramatically improve sales demos, product messaging, and soft skills by repeatedly responding to simulated scenarios. Prompt learners to submit videos of sales pitches and incorporate feedback from mentors and required keywords using AI. Platforms like Rehearsal offer adaptive personalized learning paths with structured training content.
Leading sales organizations have reported upskilling sales force 30-40% faster, shortened speed to competency by 41%, and increased revenue by 10+% within a year.
Learn more about how video-based training can help your sales teams.
Training Games / Gamification
Gamification works because it triggers real, powerful human emotions. Instead of passively clicking through training materials, eLearning games drive learners to interact and use their skills to overcome challenges. When learners are emotionally and mentally engaged, they’re more likely to absorb knowledge and retain what they’ve learned. Custom games provide a safe space for employees to practice skills, achieve predefined goals, and earn rewards. Immediate feedback keeps learners on track, and goal-setting motivates them to improve their scores—while increasing knowledge retention and performance. Plus, a series of short, highly-focused games reduces cognitive overload by driving home key points one step at a time.
Read about how a sales organization deployed a gamified learning management system to educate and immerse sales associates resulting in sales growth.
Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality
With virtual reality, you can help your employees develop conditioned responses and problem-solving skills—even before they’re on the job. This “almost real” environment simulates experiences on the job, helping workers acquire skills in less time without the cost and impracticalities of ILT. Making mistakes is how we learn best, and in the virtual world, your learners can make as many mistakes as they need—without costing a dime. It’s also easy to build soft and hard skills with VR.
Learn how an international luxury brand trained its retail in-store staff using virtual reality.
Learners today crave learning to be aligned with real-world needs along with immediate feedback and recognition. Modern technologies help bring this to an online learning environment. For decision-makers, learning technologies today deliver a higher impact, unlike anything witnessed before. High-impact modalities can be easily and affordably incorporated into your L&D strategy and drive better ROI in less time.
Do you have a multi-faceted, remote sales team? We can build training that can be deployed anywhere—more effective eLearning, ILT, or virtual training done asynchronously or synchronously. From sales skills development, sales process, or product training, our Sales Enablement Practice Group will strategically create custom learning solutions combining innovation and technology so that your learners actually enjoy training!
Explore how you can build learning curriculums and learning certification programs that include (but are not limited to), games, virtual reality simulations, video/audio production, job aids, or documentation/user guides. At ELB Learning, we promote an agile, iterative, and learner-centric approach that ensures programs are deployed on time and help learning professionals achieve their real-world performance goals.
