As you're probably aware, more and more educational institutions and businesses are adopting online sales training. This is largely due to the increase in affordable and easy to use technology that makes online sales training so cost effective and quick and easy to deploy.  However, if your IT staffing firm has been utilizing traditional training methods such as shadow training or instructor-led classroom training vs. online sales training,  than it may be daunting to even consider adopting an online sales training model.  Just thinking about where to begin can be intimidating.  In this blog I’m going to share with you seven benefits of online sales training for IT staffing firms. 

If you’re a sports fan than you probably already know that top professional athletes love to watch and study video footage of other top athletes. For example, NBA all-stars Kevin Durant and Steph Curry love watching old Michael Jordan, Ray Allen and Kobe Bryant videos in an effort to learn and emulate their game.  They study the greats in an effort to improve their game and develop new moves. Professional athletes along with their teammates and coaches also watch and study game film together to identify what they can improve upon. Coaches and teammates point out their mistakes. This is how they improve performance.    Leading research firms have also discovered that video training and video sales coaching is not only a preferred and effective learning tool, but that it also improves sales training results. Consider the following: Sales teams that reinforce training with video sales coaching see 34% more first-year reps hitting quota. (Aberdeen Group) Peter Ostrow of SiriusDecisions says "video is well-suited to refining the human element of [B2B] selling.  Younger generations are especially engaged with rich media such as video. This includes millennials, who will make up 75% of the U.S. workforce by 2025."

If you’re trying to find the best training program for your employees, there are a few things to consider when it comes to online sales training vs. instructor-led classroom training. In this blog post I share the differences between online sales training vs. instructor-led classroom training to help you decide if it is time for you take your sales training online.

Sales Performance International reports that new sales reps lose 84 percent of what they learn in sales training within 90 days. Trainingindustry.com says U.S. companies spend on average $5,000 per sales rep on sales training annually.  The same report also shows that it takes 381 days to get new hires selling at the same performance level as a tenured sales reps. With those staggering numbers, the next logical question is, how can I quickly, conveniently and inexpensively get my sales reps-especially my new hires-hitting sales quota?  The answer lies in your hands, literally.  Mobile applications. Online sales training continues to grow in popularity, and with salespeople living on their smartphones, mobile applications provide an easy, convenient and inexpensive way to turn any mobile device into a powerful sales training tool. Here are five reasons to adopt mobile sales training.

When your new recruiter or new sales rep walks through your door on day one you should have two objectives; make them feel welcome and part of the team, and ramp them up to quota attainment as quickly as possible. The shorter the ramp up the quicker they build confidence and start adding value to the business. 

Don’t worry, you’re not alone if you are not familiar with the term microlearning.  It’s not a new concept, but it has been a hot topic trend that is proven to improve employee training including learner retention and adoption of new skills and knowledge. While chunking training content down into short bite size pieces has been around for some time, we are seeing an increased focus on microlearning as a significant element of an organization’s overall sales training strategy and delivery model. Below I share with you a brief overview of microlearning including 8 benefits to microlearning. 

One of the biggest challenges senior sales leaders face is how to onboard and train millennial salespeople. It’s a daunting task, and an expensive one. Getting new employees up to speed can cost up to 30 percent of a new hire’s annual salary. This is particularly true for more established organizations who have relied on more traditional, instructor-led classroom training as their primary means for training new hires. 

According to an HBR article, U.S. companies spend over $70 billion annually on sales training, and an average of $1,459 per salesperson — almost 20 percent more than they spend on training workers in all other functions. Yet, when it comes to equipping sales teams with the relevant skills and knowledge, the ROI of sales training is disappointing. Studies indicate that participants in traditional instructor based training forget more than 80 percent of the information they were taught within 90 days.

There is a lot of buzz in the eLearning world about gamification. OK, I understand you might not be following trends and best practices for the training, learning & development industry but let me share with you how this impacts the growth of your IT staffing business.

“Social learning” has been a hot buzzword in the world of training, learning and development for several years yet many people still often ask what social learning is and often get the term confused.  In this post I'm going to share with you what social learning is and how adopting social learning into your sales training program can provide three core benefits to not only accelerate learning but also improve employee confidence and self-esteem, all of which drive improved performance.