Sales Training Programs Online - The Digital Sales Institute

Sales Training Programs Online

Sales training programs online could become the preferred delivery channel over the next few years. Online sales training has both advantages, disadvantages, and parity with the more traditional approach to up-skilling salespeople. Remote working, flexible working hours, cost, productivity, and preference will lead to sales training being delivered online with a decline in traditional instructor led classroom training.

The hard reality facing salespeople and sales leaders is that the selling environment has changed dramatically. Whether that is as a result of disruption, digital platforms, and buyer preferences. The impact is an increasingly competitive market, meaning that every business has to fight their corner to avoid revenue decline, customer churn and competitor moves.

As salespeople are to the fore of human to human buyer interactions, training them has to mirror the digital journeys most customers now take. Add in the fact that the content and skills they want to learn are constantly evolving.

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Harvard has shown that the reason many sales organizations fail is due to irrational decision making.  How can it be rational to invest so much time and money in hiring sales talent only to give them periodic sales training? Despite all the talk of AI selling, the truth is that the frontline sales organization can make or break a company.

So, sales skill development remains essential for any business. However, the pressure to hit targets and revenues squeezes training time as these pressures do not go away while the sales team sit in a room. Another factor is that in the digital era, many salespeople are part of remote teams spread out across a country or even globally. Taking them away from executing their roles even for a short period of time is becoming unsustainable. This is especially true for inside sales teams where time off the phone or digital channels can result in revenue lost.

A great advantage of sales training programs accessed online is that it allow salespeople to learn, relearn and upskill in their own time and pace without taking up internal resources. By giving them a level of responsibility of their own self education and progress also creates opportunities for sales managers to have more meaningful performance conversations that drives real behavior change.

Sales Training Programs – Online

What should any salesperson expect to learn in a sales training program online? Well, the answer could be to learn all the essential selling skills, however the beauty of online learning, is the salesperson can pick and select what topics are most relevant to their skill set.

A recent piece of research reported that according to B2B customers, more than half of salespeople lacked the key sales skills for the industry they sold into, a skills gap that could be quickly remedied via online sales training. Even more research from the training industry shows that organizations who provide ongoing access for the sales teams to programs to improve their sales skills see above average increases in their sales compared to their competitors. Some research shows this increase at over 30% especially for newer salespeople.

Here is just a few benefits of sales training programs delivered online:

The ease of access means that online sales training programs can increase not just skills, but confidence and satisfaction with the sales role.

Due to the ability to update constantly, online training can help salespeople to learn about the latest techniques on an ongoing basis in a positive learning environment (no distractions or competition of voices).

Self-education allows the salesperson the opportunity to reflect on their own sales skills and self-identify different their strengths and weaknesses for performance improvement.

Online sales training can shorten the ramp up time to enable salespeople to succeed faster.

Drive high adoption of learning via micro learning sales videos, lesson downloads, quizzes, and templates.

Repeated online learning empowers salespeople to learn the skills needed to execute their role in a non-pressurized and build up their belief in they have what it takes to be successful.

Salespeople can improve their time management, productivity and close rates with self-directed learning paths that reinforces best sales practices and keeps them engaged.

What Are Online Sales Training Programs?

We live, buy, and sell in the digital age. We stream HD movies into our homes, live in smart homes, order groceries and clothes online, rely on the internet to provide information from news to the weather. We can instantly access vast quantities of data on a mobile phone that fits into the palm of a hand. So, it should come as no surprise that the most updated and topical sales training programs are online.

Sales training programs online are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  These programs provide multiple ways to experience the training content including video, PDF downloads, templates, quizzes etc. This has the added advantage that the salesperson does not have to learn all the content in a tight time frame, so they miss none of the topics. Online sales training providers usually give access to the content for a year so the salesperson can re-watch the presentations or videos as often as they wish.

Sales training programs delivered online are great for anyone in sales who needs to fit their learning around a busy schedule. Online training is also proving to be a more fun and engaging method to acquire the essential sales skills via short bursts of sales training videos. This allows any salesperson to study at their convenience. The real tangible benefit it that this learning method allows any salesperson to choose their own learning environment that works best for their needs: be it at home, during break times, or anywhere with an internet connection.

Online sales training via micro learning. Micro learning online sales training is the healthy snack of learning. Easy to digest, bite sized, memorable and available 24/7. Salespeople now wants to be able to pick up learning in a way that reflects the world they live in, training that is always on, flexible, fast, fun, friendly, and relevant. Bite-sized video training is a great way to keep the entire sales team updated and learning even when they are on the move.

Online sales training programs offers salespeople the easiest and most cost effective to increase their sales knowledge, for sales training content be shared seamlessly and even maintain healthy levels of sales skills competition. It is so easy and works like a dream with zero admin and less resources.

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Final thoughts on sales training programs

All online sales training programs should provide the content and insights to boost the sales team’s success. The cherry on top is that it provides the training lessons when and where they need it. Plus, it allows them to access training at any time or any place. With more salespeople working remotely online learning can unleash their ability to access training insights, sales training videos, tips and tricks and sales programs wherever they are. It is available to them when it suits them!!

It goes without saying that salespeople are the life blood of many organizations and the central cog in bringing in profitable revenue. To cost effectively ensure they have access to the best tools from CRM to Data to online sales training can help to make learning a competitive edge for everyone. As budgets come under pressure and resources tight, online sales training that helps salespeople become more efficient, more insightful, more knowledgeable, and successful will deliver value that extends far beyond the small price for accessing quality training.

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