Training sales team members can be a real challenge for businesses of all sizes, whether they have one employee or hundreds. To make matters worse, training salespeople takes time that you could be spending on other aspects of your business.
Recently, many companies have found success by leveraging learning management systems to get more out of their training efforts and reduce time spent on this critical function.
These are the top ways to use your Learning Management System or LMS to help your sales team perform at their best and reach their goals faster than before.
Speed Up the Onboarding Process
Employee onboarding doesn’t need to be time-consuming or laborious—in fact, it should just take a few minutes. These days, most employees expect their employer to give them some access or at least login information within 24 hours of being hired. Make sure you do that and get them set up on whichever LMS you have in place so they can start getting acquainted with internal resources ASAP.
Develop Skills Internally
If someone on your team is presenting at an upcoming conference or has just written a new white paper, encourage them to upload it to your learning management system. Doing so not only gives other people on your team access it also boosts their confidence by giving them exposure.
Additionally, if you offer training for employees, like webinars or Google Hangouts, as part of onboarding and annual reviews, consider recording those sessions and adding them to an ongoing internal training curriculum.
Streamline Training Processes
Salespeople are expensive. They’re also busy. Giving them access to training and development programs can save your company a lot of money while helping boost performance, incredibly when nurturing new hires and transferring knowledge between existing employees.
Companies don’t have to host webinars, videoconferences, or other types of learning content on their servers. Several providers now offer software-as-service (SaaS) learning management systems, which give you access to robust training options in an easy-to-use interface that runs on any device.
Capture Data Insights
The most obvious benefit of using a learning management system is that it captures data insights. Sales managers can better analyze performance if they know precisely what their reps are studying and whether they passed each exam.
The beauty of an LMS is that it automatically keeps track of all these metrics, so you don’t have to do anything extra. Whether or not you look at these metrics, at least they’re being recorded. That way, you’ll always have data on hand if something comes up in performance reviews down the line.
Access Any Course on Any Device
An LMS for training staff or learning management systems give you access to online training that allows employees to learn on their own time and at their own pace. While one-off training programs are helpful, there’s also something powerful about being able to dip into a rich library of content whenever you need it.
Rather than wait for an expert or colleague in another city to deliver an updated program or be available for training, your company can empower employees with new skills they can pull up at any time via a learning management system.
For example, IT staff might benefit from continuous product updates, which will allow them to stay current with industry trends and advances while improving customer service at the same time.
Create Learning Content on Demand
Using an LMS helps you keep employees up-to-date on changing policies, procedures, and best practices because you can easily create new training content as needed. Adding new and revised material is straightforward. Add it once and let your employees access it 24/7 whenever they need to refresh their knowledge.
You can easily measure each employee’s engagement with different courses by analyzing how much time they spend in training, which modules they like best, and which questions they answer correctly. If necessary, you can even create a closed-loop movement so that employees can receive instant feedback on incorrect answers.
Reach More Customers Through Gamification Features
Some learning management systems allow you to create in-app or website badges and leaderboards that incentivize participation with rewards. For example, you could reward top participants with bonus points toward completing their profile, special access to training on new features, or entry into a raffle for prizes like gift cards.
This approach can encourage members of your team who might otherwise not be motivated by online learning to take part in company training initiatives.
Bottom Line
Sales are increasingly becoming more data-driven, as companies can collect and track increasingly granular performance metrics on their employees. The best way for companies to maximize their sales efforts is by monitoring all interactions between prospects, leads, customers, and current customers to see where opportunities exist.
A good Learning Management System can provide a one-stop-shop for these activities by allowing sales reps to record contact information of potential leads or existing customers they’ve interacted with at any time.
