Are you having a hard time getting salespeople bought into sales training and ongoing learning? Struggling to get their attention? Unable to get them to try and apply new skills?
It all comes down to behavior change. Getting people to try new things and change their behavior is one of the toughest things out there.
If you’re having trouble getting adoption, include each of the steps below represented in your training program.
B – Buy-in – If you want a salesperson’s time – their most valuable resource – you better show them upfront why it’s well worth their time. Show them ROI and results, or prove that they may need some help here. Basically, prove they’re in trouble without using the skill OR prove the benefit of using the skill.
L – Learning – As training experts, I don’t need to tell you what good facilitation is. I use the CUP model. C stands for “Connect”, U for “Use” and P for “Practice.” If it’s a video, it’s not learning (more on that topic here).
I – Integration – We have to be able to use skills at the same time when we’re in sales. I can’t just have a folder of product training, skills training, and systems training and not integrate them. So, if you want people to use your new skill, show them HOW and WHEN it’s being applied. Help train the triggers of when to grab this folder and practice it integrated with other skills.
S – Synthesis – Make sure you’re practicing with other skills. If this is something that’s just in theory and sort of left on a shelf, it’s going stay on that shelf. Bring it into the real world. At Factor 8, we always make live calls practicing new skills during training. We’ve learned it, we’ve role-played it, we’ve talked about it, now we’re going to go do it and get some feedback on it.
S – Support – Getting busy revenue leaders to support training initiatives is rough. We’ve got to do buy-in for them as well. My tip here is make it FAST and EASY for frontline managers to support these new skills. Bring them into the training but give them tools to use. We have a manager toolkit for every class we teach with easy-to-use activities in huddles, classes, or training sessions to keep skills alive. Things like call coaching forms or call coaching cheat sheets to help them support the newly learned skills.
Follow the steps in BLISS and you’ll blissfully ensure that salespeople will embrace and apply new skills. Need help? Email me at LB@factor8.com.
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I’ve heard from many sales leaders lately that it’s tough getting the next generation of sellers to pick up the phone.
We all know that no one wants to make cold calls, but the endless email and InMail touches and cadences that your reps are using aren’t working.
And, with the new Gmail and Yahoo email restrictions that kicked in this year, it’s more important than ever to go back to basics and get new sellers to pick up the phone.
At Factor 8, we’re focused on teaching reps tactical phone sales skills to help them build sales confidence (so they’ll pick up the phone AND feel great about it!)
When you’re bringing on someone new – especially when they’re remote – one of the most important things you can do in new hire onboarding is use call recordings.
The game has changed over the past few years. When sellers are remote, they can’t just sit next to their peers, hear what’s happening, and learn the good, bad, and ugly.
If your company doesn’t record calls, or you’re worried about not having a specific rep’s call recordings, toss that – it doesn’t matter. You can learn so much from any call recording.
In fact, at Factor 8 in our Sales Bar, our online sales training platform, we have thousands of user-submitted recorded sales calls from all different industries, organized by skill (i.e. call intro, overcoming objections, call bridging, closing, etc.)
During onboarding, break down the call and let reps listen to what it sounds like, even if it’s not a good call, because what we’re scared of is what the customer is going to say to us (and the inability to think on our feet to respond to them intelligently).
When reps hear different scenarios on sales calls 20 or 30 times, they begin to feel comfortable and that fear starts to go away and the confidence rises.
And that’s the name of the game, folks: confidence. You’ve got to have it to succeed in sales, and building it begins at onboarding.
Need help building sales confidence in your sales reps? Email me at LB@factor8.com. I’m happy to help!
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In the world of sales, the quest for effective training solutions is never-ending. For years, event-based sales training has been the norm, but is it actually effective?
I’m here to tell you 7 reasons why event-based training won’t cut it, especially for leaders managing large teams.
Lack of Sustained Learning
Concern: Event-based training is like cramming the night before a test. You get a bunch of info all at once, but will you remember it next week? Probably not.
Reality Check: Enablement leaders get that learning isn’t just a one-time thing; it’s an ongoing process. Sales teams require continuous skill development and reinforcement. Event-based training, with its one-off sessions, can’t provide the consistent support needed for long-term success.
Limited Application to Real-World Scenarios
Concern: Event-based sales training can feel like it’s all talk and no action. It’s theory-based and detached from real-world sales situations.
Reality Check: Enablement leaders know that the sales landscape is dynamic and challenging. To thrive, teams need training that is directly applicable to their daily tasks.
Poor Skill Retention Rates
Concern: Sales reps can struggle to retain the vast amount of information taught in a single training event. (That’s why micro-learning over time is critical to ensuring skills stick!)
Reality Check: Enablement leaders recognize that skill retention is the key to performance improvement. Event-based training can overwhelm participants, leading to lower skill retention. This leads to less effective training that fails to drive tangible results.
No Skill Reinforcement
Concern: Event-based training typically lacks ongoing skill reinforcement.
Reality Check: Just like learning a new language, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Skills deteriorate over time if they’re not regularly practiced and reinforced. Enablement leaders need training that includes coaching, mentoring, and opportunities for reps to apply what they’ve learned to their daily work life – something that’s missing in event-based learning.
High Cost, Limited ROI
Concern: Event-based training can be expensive, and the ROI may not always justify the investment.
Reality Check: Enablement leaders are under pressure to deliver results and prove the value of their initiatives. Event-based training’s high costs and questionable long-term effectiveness can make it a tough sell when trying to show ROI.
Challenging for High Attrition
Concern: High turnover is a common challenge for large sales teams, making it difficult to keep everyone up-to-date through periodic training events.
Reality Check: Enablement leaders understand that training should be agile and accessible. Event-based training struggles to accommodate the rapid onboarding of new hires or the need for ongoing training when turnover rates are high.
Inadaptability to Change
Concern: The sales landscape evolves rapidly, and event-based training can’t keep pace with these changes.
Reality Check: For those at the helm, it’s crucial that our teams are prepped and ready to tackle the ever-shifting industry trends and customer needs. Relying solely on event-based training might not give us the flexibility and swift adaptation we genuinely need.
A More Effective Approach: Continuous, Virtual Training
Event-based sales training has its merits. However, for those leading large teams with a notable churn rate, it might not be the optimal choice. The better route? Ongoing, virtual sales training. It promises consistent, deep learning, techniques that align with real-world challenges, enhanced skill retention, ongoing skill reinforcement, cost efficiency, and the flexibility to adapt to the ever-evolving landscape.
Ongoing learning fosters a culture of proactive growth which improves employee retention. This continuous approach ensures that every team member, whether a seasoned sales pro or a new rep, is armed with the most current strategies, insights, and best practices. In a landscape as competitive as sales, staying updated isn’t just recommended—it’s imperative.
Are you looking for virtual sales training?
Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs available for reps (and managers).
Oh, and then we left them at home on an island with a swamped sales manager drowning in Slacks and emails and without the ability to listen to peers to learn how to do their jobs.
Buy reputable training content (check out The Sales Bar)
Train your managers (they’re the key to motivating reps)
Sellers are struggling. Our close rates are going down, our engagement rates are going down, and satisfaction rates are going down, this isn’t a coincidence. We quit training them and put them on an island with busy managers (who can also use some skills).
Do your future self a favor, and get back on track with enabling people to succeed. They need that investment so they can get these wins, be successful in sales faster, hit quota sooner, and stay longer.
Not sure what you should budget for sales training? Email me at LB@factor8.com and I’ll share some stats in the industry that will help you hit goal and be best-in-class.
Are you looking for sales training?
Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs available for reps (and managers).
Last week, I soapboxed about how videos aren’t training sellers anything (read that post here).
So today, I’ll share a learning strategy that ACTUALLY works if you really want to use a new skill (or want your team to try it)…
“Associative Learning” – wait! Don’t go to sleep!
This theory is why everyone says, “Oh, you’re like Sandler” to me about my training company.
It’s also the reason your college lectures were SO BORING:
Adults learn by relating new knowledge to older knowledge and to experiences.
That’s it. The whole magic.
We’ve got to talk about it. We’ve got to know where to “file it” in our brains.
Early call rapport-building is like when you met your freshman roommate
Late call bridging to the next call is when you asked her out again before the first date was over
Getting a decision-maker on the phone is like getting to first base 😉
Your amazing new software with zero competitors – “OH, so it’s like Ambition had a baby with Gong.” Don’t be offended, at least they’ll remember what you do.
Here’s why it works (for my fellow training nerds):
The “Associative Learning Rule” is the theory behind the phrase “Synapses that fire together, wire together.” It explains that brain cells grow stronger by sending off impulses at the same time, therefore, connecting them and overall growing stronger. When connections grow stronger, learning has taken place.
It’s why your video-based “learning library” is a waste of money. I get it, they’re easy, cheap, repeatable, and scalable – but nearly worthless when it comes to helping your team retain knowledge – let alone use it on the job to pick up the phone and sell something.
Big takeaways:
Don’t think that telling or showing a video will result in behavior change
Create opportunities for your team to talk about what they’re learning and tell their stories
Use your LinkedIn Learning budget to hire a trainer or a training company that can interact, workshop, and actually help sellers apply new skills on the job
(Now, if only I knew a great sales training company… Seriously, if you’re looking for sales training techniques that actually work, contact us here.)
Want to learn more sales training techniques?
Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs available for reps (and managers).
Now more than ever the world needs good virtual employee development. Enablement leaders are scrambling to take face-to-face employee training programs online and sales leaders are stretching themselves thin plugging holes to engage their people, coach, and level up. But we’re all circling around a central problem:
Most e-learning sucks.
If you’ve ever let a recorded PowerPoint play in the background while doing email…
If you’ve ever clicked forward ten times to get to the quiz…
If you’ve wished that the “Fluff Narrator” could be set to 1.5x speed…
You get me.
For ten years I resisted moving Factor 8 curriculum online for these very reasons. It’s boring. It isn’t interactive. It doesn’t pertain to me and my job. And here’s why:
It isn’t how adults learn.
Even if you aren’t a training geek, you’ve probably heard of adult learning principles. In short, it means that as grown-ups we want to participate in our learning. We need to relate new information to past information and share our experiences. We want the Subway model (“more lettuce, no mayo”), not the Burger King model (“#1 please”).
If you are hunting for great virtual learning or building it yourself, allow me to share best practices I learned while converting our sales and sales leadership curriculum from face-to-face workshops to our virtual offering The Sales Bar.
#1 – Go Micro. “Microlearning” is a training geek term that means small bites or, “If I can’t participate in the learning, for God’s sake, keep it short.” Fifteen minutes should be the maximum time for any module (or learning chunk).
#2 – Vary the Modalities. The modality is the learning format. We use interactive e-learning (more below), video, activities, reading, cheat sheets, and actual skill demonstrations using audio or video. There are different types of learners out there and recorded PowerPoint and video don’t address them all. Kinesthetic learners need to touch it, type it, write it, sort it, and more. This is where most training fails. (BTW, everyone’s favorite feature is the real calls that show the good, bad, and ugly in real (redacted) sales calls.) Here’s a screenshot example of all the different modalities in just one module:
#3 – Make E-Learning Interactive. The reason we can let bad training play in the background is that it doesn’t require us to be present. Interactive training means the learner is choosing his own adventure and touching the content. At Factor 8 we never go more than five pages without interaction. For example, learners click to see more or hear a sample, drag and drop, slide the scale, make a choice, or type in an answer. Interactivity not only keeps learners present and engaged, it is the only way to achieve higher-level learning objectives (read on dear friend…).
#4 – Go Higher with Objectives. Bear with me and my training hat for a moment, but there’s a taxonomy or ranking of learning objectives called Bloom’s taxonomy. If you want learning to be applied on the job, you must get past “remembering and understanding” and get into analyzing, evaluating, and creating. This starts with good learning objectives/training goals and is achieved by getting learners to interact with the data. Don’t just recall it, roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty with it. (that last part may not be a technical term as much as my term). This is why a company selling you a series of videos as e-learning misses the mark.
#5 – Layer in Live Interaction. The interactive e-learning goes to the next level when you layer in live interaction. Here is where you customize, apply, practice, and role-play. We do this after every 1-2 online modules with a live virtual instructor course. We also do it by assigning activities before and after this live session. It might be to write their own sales messaging, record a good call, or count successful outcomes trying a new skill. It bridges the gap between theory and reality and it’s the only way to get learners to own applying and using the new skills – giving actual behavior change a real shot. Bonus note for trainers: this is how you can make your “generic” virtual training customized for different internal clients.
#6 – Involve Leaders. A Training Magazine study a few years ago researched deeply into what makes training stick or not. Answers #1 and #2 had nothing to do with the quality of the training and everything to do with what the learner’s boss said before the training (#1) and after the training (#2). “Forget what you learned, here’s how it really works…” is an example of this not going well. Involve the leaders not just by making them attend, but try having them partner to kick off the training, give input in the needs analysis to build the training, and by assigning them work after the training. We built Leader Toolkits to accompany every module that includes call coaching forms to grade the skill in real calls, a coaching cheat sheet to help them ask the right questions during call coaching, and even activities and an implementation guide to help them roll it out and keep skills alive afterward. Here’s a sample:
Ok, my top 3 tips turned into six, and I still feel like I’m just getting started. In the end, I’m enormously proud of what we built in The Sales Bar and I hope it’s helped you picture a new level of good for virtual instruction. If you’ve seen something here you like and you need virtual sales training for sales reps, sales managers, or sales leaders, click here to learn more about The Sales Bar for your team. It took us two years to build this and we’re not done yet. If you’re just starting, you can save time by outsourcing the sales curriculum to us and focus instead on getting your product, process, and new hire orientation curriculum online internally.
Ready to partner with a top virtual sales training provider?
Contact us today to request information on our customizable virtual sales training programs available for reps (and managers).
If you haven’t heard yet, we’re telling you now! We at Factor 8 have officially launched a brand new e-learning platform where your reps and managers can practice and refresh those skills they learned in our Factor 8 onsite advisor training sessions! And, we couldn’t be more pumped to share it with you.
“Okay,” you’re thinking, “But why do I care? My teams are already receiving Factor 8’s training.” We’re glad you asked.
Here’s why The Sales Bar could be a big deal for you.
1. Effective and Convenient
Our learners are seeing immediate results. Tom, an SDR leader, says: “Historically, our team gets almost zero callbacks on voicemails. After taking the Factor 8 online course on effective voicemails, we received 25 call backs last week alone!”. Plus, there’s no complicated scheduling. Reps train at their pace whenever they’re free – at home, at lunch, in a box, with a fox…you get the idea. Our anonymous testers are calling it “Easy Online Flexible Training”, and that’s the goal – to make it easier to learn more!
“Historically, our team gets almost zero callbacks on voicemails. After taking the Factor 8 online course on effective voicemails, we received 25 call backs last week alone!”
2. Boosts Engagement and Rretention
Our testers think it’s “Friendly and Fun!” Learners are exposed to multiple styles of learning and have more fun completing training. Because we think learning only one way is boring (and so do your reps and managers!).
3. Measurable Comprehension
Because everything’s recorded digitally, leaders and managers can see exactly which reps are excelling and which need support and where. It’s like your own secret spy cam!
4. Refreshes Skills (Forgotten or Underdeveloped!)
Sales Bar supports the learning that goes on in our onsite training sessions by breaking down the same skills and offering diversified practice activities to keep them up to snuff long after the session has ended. Studies show that regular reinforcement of training is critically important to protecting your training investment.
5. Provides Ongoing Development
You can’t just do training once and expect your reps to continuously improve forever. They need practice and repetition so they can actually see daily improvement at their desks and on the phone. Diane Abraham, Sales Director at RedVector says, “…To me this is what it takes to coach up a team. Not just 4 days in a room but ongoing courses/content with a mix of self guided and manager assigned tasks. We call that blended learning in our world.”
6. Offers Real Results
You don’t want to waste time and budget on a product that doesn’t work! The Sales Bar ensures you experience more growth at end of month. For example, Mike, Director of Telesales, tells us, “We had a significant lift, +19% across the entire team on topline growth for the month of May [1st month using the Sales Bar]” And we like those numbers!
“We had a significant lift, +19% across the entire team on topline growth for the month of May [1st month using the Sales Bar]”
7. Developed by Factor 8
The same award-winning company you trust for all your inside sales training can also provide support when they aren’t there! (Hey, that’s us!) The Sales Bar is designed to supplement our onsite sessions, not work against them. You know us. We know you. You’ll get the best ROI because of it.
8. Easily Updated to Keep with Best Practices
You know as well as anyone how quickly the inside sales industry is changing (Overnight, it feels like). Newer, more effective techniques are being developed all the time, while others simply fall out of fashion. The Sales Bar ensures your employees are always on the cutting-edge. So, your teams are always given accurate information.
9. Offers Dozens of Reference Materials
Psst…it’s okay to cheat sometimes! We know those 3-second, handwritten notes won’t get your reps very far past the onsite training session. So, we’ve decked out The Sales Bar with great cheat sheets, guides, and script samples your teams can use everyday while on the floor!
10. Provides Consistent Information Delivery
Once the onsite training has passed, your sales reps are often on their own to practice and seek out feedback. And the quality of that feedback can vary manager to manager. With The Sales Bar, your entire sales team will receive consistent feedback and reinforcement, so everyone is best equipped to succeed.
The best part? You can try it out for free to see the difference for yourself!
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