When equipped with a strong knowledge of your organisation’s products or services, your sales representatives can have a powerful market impact, generating increased profits. Therefore, it is important to make training and professional development an essential part of their role.
Research shows that employees who engage with sales training improve their sales performance. They close 15% more deals and their profit margins are 12% better. They also, on average, take 10% fewer days to close a deal, enabling them to move on to other prospects.
Salespeople are constantly on the go and often don’t have time for long training sessions. Microlearning can replace traditional classroom training, engaging employees and generating better results.
What is microlearning?
Microlearning breaks training down into manageable, bite-sized pieces. Research shows that microlearning can increase knowledge retention by up to 20%.
Microlearning is also quick; for example, Wranx sessions take just 2–3 minutes to complete. This makes it easier for your sales staff to engage with training. In fact, one survey found that microlearning can boost engagement by more than 50%!
This form of learning is mobile-friendly, giving busy sales people the flexibility to access it when and where they want.
You should aim to include the following in your microlearning program:
Product knowledge
It is essential that your sales representatives have excellent product knowledge. Without it, they will find it difficult to deliver effective and compelling pitches.
Having deep product knowledge means employees will be able to answer any questions and alleviate customer concerns. Great product knowledge shows that staff are subject experts and creates trust among your customers.
You should help sales personnel stay up to date on your latest products by creating training modules about any new releases or updated items.
Gamification
You should aim to incorporate gamification into your microlearning program. This involves including game elements such as leaderboards, points and badges. Gamification can evoke a sense of competition among your sales representatives, making training interesting and engaging, and ensuring that learners absorb the content.
Communication skills
Good communication skills are a key trait of successful salespeople. They must be able to clearly and effectively communicate across all channels – whether that’s by email, phone conversation, or video call.
To help sales professionals hone these skills, you should teach them techniques such as professional responses, how to be empathetic and how to interpret body language.
Closing a deal
In today’s competitive market, closing a deal is crucial and takes more effort and knowledge than ever before. You must provide your sales staff with training covering the most powerful closing techniques.
One of the most popular closing techniques is the assumptive close. In this case, your sales personnel act as if the sale is a given and that the next step is to decide upon things such as quantity or delivery dates.
Listening skills
In order to be successful, your sales team must have excellent listening skills. Listening ensures your sales representatives understand clients and are able to deal with any concerns they may have about your product.
It is essential that you train your sales personnel in the art of active listening. This involves focusing on what the customer is saying, interpreting what they mean and responding in a positive manner. Active listening shows you understand what a client is saying and that you consider it to be important.
Active listening in sales requires asking follow-up questions, allowing the salesperson to gain plenty of information about a client and build rapport with them.
Handling objections
Sales representatives encounter rejections and conflicts constantly. Therefore, it is important that your sales team learn how to handle these objections by remaining calm and focused.
Microlearning can help sales personnel constantly improve upon their sales skills, wherever they are. It is effective in helping to retain more information and then be able to recall it for longer periods of time.
Through this bite-sized learning method, your sales team can increase their expertise and ultimately improve the customer experience. This can lead to higher customer satisfaction, increased brand loyalty and higher profits.
Why Wranx?
Wranx is a learning and development platform that can help your sales team gain knowledge through microlearning. Training can be completed anywhere and at any time.
Our platform uses Spaced Repetition in the form of daily drills – a series of around 10 questions a day. These form part of a month-long module which is created by a team of content writers, giving you a bespoke training programme.
Wranx also incorporates gamification elements and allows you to have pre and post-assessments, so you can determine areas that employees may need more training in.
You can learn more about our service here.
