Enable Your Salespeople With Product Training
If we’re being honest, sales account for a disproportionately large part of your business success, but it’s not just about numbers and revenue. Your sales teams are key to building customer trust and loyalty. Happy customers mean greater brand awareness and business growth. Supporting your salespeople is an investment in your company’s future, and product training is essential to that investment.
Product training focuses on in-depth product knowledge. It teaches the ins and outs of your products and services and educates your teams on customer pain points, features, and benefits.
Why Your Sales Teams Need Product Training
Good training allows your salespeople to create a first-rate buying experience for your clients. Understanding your product's features and competitive advantages gives them confidence. They'll feel more comfortable addressing customer questions and concerns.
And when they’re comfortable in doing their jobs, they’re more likely to stay with you and secure future relationships. The more comprehensive your product training is, the more prepared your team will be.
Training content can go beyond basic features to include things like how to customize a solution for the customer’s situation. It can help people answer frequently asked questions and direct customers to the right support resources. It also covers sales processes and future plans for the product.
Given the benefits, implementing sales training seems like a quick win. With the right LMS, you can host dynamic training and roll it out across various locations. But real sales enablement isn’t as simple as offering a course and waiting for salespeople to jump at the chance to learn.
The Challenges Of Training Sales Teams
Product training for sales teams comes with some unique challenges. The nature of salespeople's job means they’re busy and likely being pulled in many different directions as they juggle customer queries. Attention spans are short, and long, drawn-out training modules can get in the way of reaching quotas.
The technical nature of LMS training can also be a barrier to some. Online product training may be off-putting if it’s complex or assumes a certain level of technical literacy. Finding the right platform for your sales training is as important as offering the right content.
Building Product Training Programs That Work: Two Case Studies
Two TalentLMS customers talked about the challenges they faced while training their sales teams. From engaging their salespeople to providing critical information to their teams, they both knew their product training needed to be more than a one-off event.
A Business Impacted By The Pandemic
Deliveroo, an online food delivery company operating in multiple countries, found their business dramatically changed due to the pandemic. They were suddenly onboarding lots of restaurants that needed a way to carry on business amid widespread shutdowns.
The company created new protocols and services to offer restaurants financial support. They wanted to be able to communicate these changes to their sales teams fast and accurately, and help them implement them.
Previously, they’d use Slack messages, Workplace posts, or emails to inform teams about such projects. But according to Marcus Verri, Deliveroo’s global sales training manager, they weren’t very effective. “This is communication, not necessarily training,” he says.
A Company Looking For An Accessible, User-Friendly Solution
Isuzu UTE wanted to provide product training for salespeople and service technicians. Onsite training for sales teams wasn’t enough, and they wanted to expand their learning programs.
Their new solution needed to mesh with employees' busy schedules. It also needed to work for an audience that ranged from those “living and breathing tech” to those who were intimidated by technology.
Andrew Greene, senior product analyst, says they wanted training that was accessible. It had to be available when people needed it and offer in-depth answers. They also wanted to avoid disrupting busy workloads.
In both companies, leaders were looking for a way to automate the training process. They also wanted to provide a consistent learning experience across the organization. Aside from their individual challenges, they both faced concerns that may be familiar to many organizations:
- They needed effective training, but also an easy-to-use platform so that employees are actually engaging with the courses.
- Sales teams had their hands full. They were busy supporting clients and making sales. They needed training that would serve them on their own schedules and not take them away for big chunks of time.
- They needed a financially scalable solution. They wanted to roll training out across branches—even countries—and didn’t want costs of travel, venue, or instructors to hinder training.
Both companies turned to TalentLMS to create and roll out successful product training programs that met their needs.
How TalentLMS Helps Deliver Successful Product Training
Many organizations share similar concerns when it comes to product training for their sales teams. TalentLMS makes it easy to deliver successful sales training with the following benefits and features.
Ease Of use
TalentLMS is easy to use for both course creators and learners. Whether you’re building courses from scratch or using existing content, a few clicks let you create courses, add users, and track progress. The user-friendly interface also makes it easy to edit courses as you add or update training material.
The platform is just as easy for the learners to access and navigate. Isuzu UTE was particularly concerned about employees’ range of comfort with technology. However, Andrew reports that after their successful rollout, people began quickly logging in and engaging. And there was little to no demand for tech support.
Deliveroo was especially pleased with the customization options. They were able to create a layout that resembled the portal they already used and match company branding. They report that sales teams adopted it right away.
Both companies noted that training was more motivational because it was easy to access right when people needed it.
Gamification Features
A little friendly competition goes a long way in engaging learners. Adding elements of play, or gamification, keeps learners invested and boosts learning.
TalentLMS has built-in features for making engaging with training more motivational. There are options for adding points, badges, and leaderboards to your courses.
Seeing their progress encourages learners to come back frequently and move through courses quickly. It also helps them retain what they learn by presenting knowledge acquisition as a challenge.
Interactive Content
When learners interact with the content, they get more out of their learning experience. TalentLMS makes it easy to add quizzes, tests, assignments, and surveys with the click of a button. These features get learners’ attention and reinforce learning
Andrew Greene notices that interactive elements have made training at Isuzu more engaging. "We were also able to embed quizzes behind the videos and it was very well-received."
Ready-Made Courses
TalentLMS’s content library, TalentLibrary™, offers a growing collection of ready-made video courses. They cover a range of soft skills all teams need for success at work.
With courses that address major organizational roles, including sales training essentials, TalentLibrary makes it easy to get ahead on your training efforts. Courses are created to fit busy schedules—all clocking in at 15 minutes or less. They’re all designed and reviewed by experts which means that the content is not just up-to-date and helpful, but also memorable.
Deliveroo found immense value in the TalentLibrary. They were able to get training up and running quickly across the organization with content that spoke to their needs. “There's no way I can produce the content you have,” says Marcus. “On my own, it would take me several months.”
Microlearning
Because busy schedules often inhibit training, more organizations are turning to microlearning. It’s easier to digest information in small chunks. And there’s less need to carve out time in busy work weeks when you offer concise, to-the-point courses. TalentLMS supports shorter, bite-sized training modules employees can get through quickly.
This feature was significant in Isuzu UTE’s choice to host their sales training through TalentLMS. Long lessons were prohibitive given the time they took away from work and the vast amount of learning crammed into each. “We asked whether the 10-min modules were too long or too short. 93% [of employees] said that it was about right,” Andrew says.
Smaller chunks make it easier to focus on individual concepts or skills. Also, learners can quickly find the answers they're looking for or repeat one specific session if they need to refresh their memory.
Conclusion
Successful product training doesn’t only mean more sales. When you enable people to do their best work, you invest in long-term customer relationships and engaged sales teams.
TalentLMS addresses challenges typical to sales training and makes for easy, effective rollout. Within the LMS, you can track metrics around learning and comprehension. But the real measure of success, according to both Deliveroo and Isuzu UTE, is the change in people’s behavior on the job. They’re reaching their KPIs and growing with the organization.
Learning benefits your salespeople's careers, your customers, and your organization. Andrew has seen this kind of company growth at Isuzu. “Now, [salespeople] feel more in touch with the brand because they’re receiving this training on a regular basis,” he says.