Introduction

Developing an Effective Training Needs AssessmentBy Liz Couchon, Director of Sales Knowledge Management, Brainshark

What is the Most Important Aspect of Training New Sales Reps?Expert Q&A

Knowing Your Sales Force: Different Needs forDifferent RepsBy Wendy Goeckel, Director, Sales Communications Programs, Brainshark

Designing a Scalable Sales Onboarding ProgramBy Liz Couchon, Director of Sales Knowledge Management, Brainshark

Content Creation Tips for ‘Just-in-Time’ LearnersBy Michael S. Helton, Director of Online Learning, Combined Insurance

Leveraging Subject Matter Experts for Better Sales TrainingBy Amy O’Brien, Training Manager, Brainshark

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Contents

Not long ago it was reported that more than 12% of all U.S. jobs are full-time sales positions.1 That’s a lot of sales reps in need of a whole lot of training.

This demand puts a tremendous amount of pressure on B2B companies to effectively develop and enable their salespeople from the moment they first step through the door. It’s certainly not easy, as developing a high-powered, internal sales onboarding and training program requires investment, planning and, most importantly, time.

Time spent away from the phones.

Time spent out of the field.

Time spent learning instead of selling.

IntroductionThe fact is, a truly successful training strategy doesn’t cut in to your team’s productivity; it fuels it. This requires sales trainers to streamline their efforts to provide reps with only the information they really need, when they need it, in a way that’s efficient, impactful and productive.

This exclusive eBook provides advice from seasoned sales trainers and learning professionals for developing a B2B sales training strategy that works. From new hire onboarding to ‘just-in-time’ updates, live training to on-demand eLearning, inside you’ll find best practices for assessing your needs, scaling your onboarding and training programs, creating powerful content, and much more.

01 Introduction

Developing anEffective TrainingNeeds Assessment

If you have spent any time as a learning professional, you’ve probably heard the term needs assessment. Maybe you are conducting these assessments all the time, or maybe you have heard of them but thought they were the great white buffalo of learning and development.

The truth is, a training needs assessment is actually quite simple, and conducting one will help you guide the development of your learning content and programs. This is especially important for sales training, as you don’t want to spend resources, time and energy creating learning material that does not provide

the solution to a knowledge gap – especially if one doesn’t exist in the first place. When it comes to sales, time is quite literally money, so you can’t afford to take reps away from their jobs for training that doesn’t hit the mark.

When learning a new concept, it is

When it comes to sales, time is quite literally money, so youcan’t afford to take reps away from their jobs for training that doesn’t hit the mark.

“By Liz Couchon, Director of Sales Knowledge Management, Brainshark

02 Developing effective training needs assessment

often helpful to start with a simple definition. I found this one on the site NeedsAssessment.org, which also happens to have some great (free) information on conducting training needs assessments. The site defines a training needs assessment as:

“A systematic process of asking questions, comparing answers, and making informed decisions about what to do next to improve human or organizational performance.”

OK, so now what?

Before conducting a needs assessment, you first need to determine whom to ask, what to ask, and what you will do once you get the answers. Let me break down each of these steps for you.

#1. Determine who you should ask. Although the questions will vary slightly, you’ll want to interview folks at all levels of the entire sales organization. Start with senior-level management, then talk to the frontline managers and the sales reps that are on the phones and in the field. You may find that the needs of senior management vary greatly from those of the frontline managers and reps. That’s OK – you can still tailor your training programs to meet those needs.

#2. Develop the questions to ask. Your questions for management will be slightly different than the ones you ask reps or subject matter experts since the managers are more in tune with operational results rather than learning gaps. Here are some ideas to get you started, but you will need to

tailor them to meet the needs of your own sales organization. For more detailed information, Performance Consulting provides a great reference guide for building your list of questions.

Senior Management/Sales Managers

• What operational/business results do you expect?• How should reps perform to be successful and achieve the expected results?• What are reps doing or not doing that is hindering achievement of the desired results?• What is causing this gap?

03 Developing effective training needs assessment

For this last question, it’s important to provide examples of external factors like outside influences, company culture, and the talent pool as well as internal factors like lack of skill, inability to find necessary information, and unavailability of performance support materials.

It’s important to capture this information because while training cannot exclusively solve for external factors like work environment, culture and talent pool, you can tailor the training you develop to include supportive material to address these issues. For example, you could build realistic scenarios that factor in a stressful or confusing environment, and then provide instruction for achievement despite these challenges.

Sales Managers/SMEs

• What should an ideal ____________ (inside sales rep, business development rep, etc.) be able to do?

• How do the top performing reps currently get to the point where they perform expertly?

• For those reps who don’t perform at that level, how do they learn their jobs?

• What tools and resources are currently in place that help or hinder a rep’s ability to effectively do his or her job? [This could be anything from formal training, informal training or mentoring programs, to factors like schedule flexibility.]

• How are these tools working or not working and what is lacking?

• What would an ideal curriculum look like for your reps that need to increase their skills, abilities and knowledge?

Sales Reps

• What is your current level of job performance?

• What would help you to perform at a higher level? [The answer may be related to training needs, but it may be related to external factors like work-life balance, additional resources (human or non-human), health issues, and so on.]

• In what ways do you currently learn

about your job and industry? [This may differ from what management believes to be the case.]

• What learning opportunities would you like to see offered this year?

#3. Tabulate the results. Once you have gathered the information, you will need to tabulate everything to have a clear picture of what steps to take. Since a training needs assessment does not start with a solution in mind, taking the time to review and organize results is critical.The results of the assessment will not only provide direction for you as a learning provider, but will justify any actions you take (or don’t take), especially since training (despite what we as learning professionals may try to convince others) is not a cure-all for what ails an organization.

Conducting a training needs assessment is a great way to step back and make sure you have all of the information before you dive into your next sales training project. Maybe what your learners need isn’t a new training initiative at all. You will know this, of course, because you conducted a needs assessment.

04 Developing effective training needs assessment

New hires always have a lot to learn, and that’s especially true for new salespeople. There’s a lot to cover; general selling skills, product and service details, pricing information, audience needs and behavior – the list goes on and on.

We asked a collection of experienced sales experts the following question:

What is the most important thing to focus on when training and onboarding new sales reps?

Here’s what they had to say.

Trish Bertuzzi, The Bridge Group, Inc.

That is an easy question – the buyer. Here’s my hypothesis: sales and marketing leaders are making a strategic investment in their hiring process and then undermining it with a tactical onboarding process. The result is that our reps aren’t being properly prepared to take the selling field. In other words, buying and selling has changed, but our onboarding process hasn’t.

To fix that, we have to make onboarding all about them (the buyer) instead of us (the seller) – this is the new selling reality. You need to put this in context for your sellers. The first things you need to train them on are things like: • a day in the life of your buyers• what their top 3 challenges are and how are they addressing them today • how are they measured and compensated• what’s in it for them if they buy our solution

The days of hooking your reps up to a product fire hose are over. Get with the new reality!! Trish Bertuzzi @bridgegroupinc

What is the Most Important Aspectof Training NewSales Reps?Expert Q&A

05 What is the Most Important Aspect of Training New Sales Reps?

Bob Apollo, Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners

Let’s work on the assumption that you’ve hired a sales person that already has the necessary general sales skills that are required to sell your product. I believe that the most important thing you need to do when onboarding new hires is to share the accumulated knowledge of your existing sales team with them.

Although product knowledge is important, it’s never enough. You need to help them come up to speed as quickly as possible with what they need to do to target, identify, engage, qualify and close the right sort of prospects. This involves helping them understand what an ideal customer looks like, who the key stakeholders are likely to be and what is likely to matter to them, and the symptoms that suggest a product or service fit.

You’ll also want to help them understand what trigger events might cause prospects to recognize the need to change, how they can best qualify prospects, and what the key stages typically are in the buying process. If you leave new hires to try and pick this essential information up for themselves through trial-and-error, you’ll undoubtedly delay the point at which they can become truly productive. In fact, you might end up turning a potential success into a failed hire.

I’m seeing more and more organizations – particularly those that are regularly adding to their sales teams – capturing this “tribal knowledge” in the form of sales playbooks, but even an informal attempt to share this sort of information can be invaluable. My final thought? Please don’t imagine that onboarding is complete when you’ve briefed the new hire about your company and its products. The journey has only just begun.

Bob Apollo @bobapollo

06 What is the Most Important Aspect of Training New Sales Reps?

Dave Stein, ES Research Group

It really depends on what the product/service is, what value it delivers to the customer, and to whom in the customer’s organization it is being sold to. If I had to give one answer, it would be specifically how to apply that product or service to the customer’s business and what the specific value – measured in dollars and cents or other business metrics – will be for the customer. A lot of onboarding these days consists of too much product knowledge without discussing how the product helps the customer overcome challenges or leverage opportunities. The companies that prepare their salespeople with this capability typically sell more sooner, with considerably less discounting.

[With that said], I believe that as time goes on, onboarding will become more and more customized to the individual new salesperson’s capabilities. For example, if I’m hiring two sales reps and one is very strong in selling skills but has no experience selling into my customers’ industry, and the other is very strong in the industry, but weak in selling skills, should their onboarding curriculum be the same? The answer is no. So we’d really like to see companies identifying new recruits’ areas for improvement and work on those. This will save time, money, and the new reps’ motivation.

Dave Stein @davestei

07 What is the Most Important Aspect of Training New Sales Reps?

Knowing Your Sales Force: Different Needs for Different RepsBy Wendy Goeckel, Director, Sales Communications Programs, Brainshark

One size doesn’t fit all for sales training. Most companies support multiple sales forces or have segmented reps into teams based on who they sell to, what they sell and how they sell. Effective training programs must take into account the needs of these different types of sales forces.

Many of the components or classes in a sales training curriculum cover topics such as:• your sales process or methodology• how to use CRM and other tools• your products and services

These will be the same for all reps, regardless of which team they are on. But you still need to make sure that your overall approach works for each team based on work environment and needed selling skills. With this in mind, let’s take a look at several segments that are common across B2B sales forces and how you might adjust your training approach to meet their needs.

Inside sales teams

As a rule, inside sales reps do not

meet with prospects face-to-face. Instead, they engage over the phone or through online meetings.

If the inside sales team is partnered with field reps, then their focus is on prospecting, qualification and discovery, so their training must be focused on these skills as well, including role plays and live sessions for reinforcement. When this team is responsible for the entire sales process, it tends to be more of a transactional sale. In that case, their sales training needs to take into account a shorter buying cycle and quicker close.

Because the inside sales reps are typically based in a common location, it is easier logistically to provide live training sessions. You are not pulling them out of the field, so you can keep the live sessions relatively short at 60-90 minutes, and hold them more often, which is the most effective way to get a high level of retention.

Just keep in mind that inside reps prefer to break up their day with shorter on-demand training they can take at their convenience, instead of long sessions that pull them away from their jobs for large blocks of time.

08 Knowing Your Sales Force: Different Needs for Different Reps

Shark Tip

The Brainshark Learning Cloud enables you to easily create and deliver on-demand training presentations that reps can view in the field, without cutting into productivity.

Learn More

09 Knowing Your Sales Force: Different Needs for Different Reps

Field reps

Field reps combine face-to-face meetings with phone and online interactions with prospects and customers.

Live training can be a challenge since field reps spend so much time away from the corporate office. To be productive, they need to be out calling on customers, not sitting in a training session. When they are brought in for training, it can’t just be for general information; the sessions need to be highly relevant and specific to their jobs. If the reps can’t use what they learn in a live session during their interactions with prospects and customers, their time would be better spent in the field.

To ensure that live training doesn’t cut into productivity, in-person sessions should be combined with on-demand modules. For example, prior to in-person training, background information can be provided in an on-demand format, then after the live sessions, reinforcement modules can be used to further solidify key concepts.

Another thing to remember is that field reps have limited opportunities for team building since they are typically located in geographically dispersed areas. Live training sessions provide a great opportunity for interactions with their peers, so time to do this should be built into the training day. Examples of high-value interactive sessions include the opportunity for reps to share their experiences – what works and what doesn’t – and participate in role play activities.

Ongoing support for field reps is a critical component of their success. According to Brainshark’s 2013 State of the Sales Rep report, 64% of reps have prepped for meetings in their car. They need short, easily accessible coaching modules that can be watched on mobile devices to help them get ready for key meetings while on the road.

Strategic accounts reps

Strategic account reps have different roles in different companies – but these reps are typically the ones called on to sell enterprise-level deals to the executive team. They tend to be assigned a small number of accounts that are identified as strategically important to the company.

These reps, like the rest of your sales force, need baseline information on your company’s capabilities and how they map to the business challenges they solve. With that said, they also need to be coached to have a different type of conversation since they are selling at a high level in their accounts and bringing in larger and broader deals.

Ultimately, strategic account reps need to have a deep understanding of the business drivers in the companies they are calling on. The goal is for them to be viewed as strategic partners or trusted advisors to their customers, and their training should support this.

Other considerations

In addition to the categories above, there are other ways to segment your

sales force, such as:• by geographic region • by business unit• by industry• hunter vs. farmer

Your learning curriculum needs to take these additional dimensions into consideration. For example, you might have one field sales team organized by geography and another focused on specific industries or vertical markets. Or you might have strategic account reps aligned with specific business units.

As you develop your learning curriculum, make sure that your training is relevant and tailored for each of your selling segments based on their required sales skills, locations, and work styles.

Designing aScalable Sales Onboarding Program

You just found out that you have a new rep starting, or maybe several new reps. It is your job to make sure they are productive quickly, but how?

Many onboarding programs use the “fire hose” method—turning the flow of information on full force and hoping critical pieces are absorbed. If you have ever been a recipient of this type of training, you know that it is torture and you rarely remember much, if anything.

You can avoid this “spray and pray” approach and deliver onboarding in a short period of time if you plan your program around critical components and use a blended approach for delivery.

Identify the Critical Components

Start by conducting a needs assessment (see Page 2). What information does the employee need to know and when does he or she need to know it? With the “fire hose” method, there is often no attention

paid to this or how each course fits in with the others.

For example, training a new sales rep on your CRM and other sales-specific applications on the first day (before they can understand how they will use it) is often completely overwhelming. The rep has no context for understanding how your systems work and how he or she will use them on a daily basis. A better approach is to push that training off until after the rep has a baseline understanding of your sales process.

Design a Blended Program

Years ago, the only way to train was to deliver your message in person. With the advent of eLearning, the push was to make every course available online. The advantage to on-demand training is that it is scalable – it doesn’t matter if you have 1 student or 500. There are no scheduling issues and the learners can move at their own pace. The challenge is that you may need that live atmosphere to

effectively reinforce a concept.

Learning professionals now know that the best approach is often one that blends both live and on-demand. In your onboarding program, use on-demand courses to present information and test knowledge of concepts, then use a live setting to give learners the opportunity to role play, ask questions, learn from their peers, and get feedback. For example, create an on-demand module showing how to present your product or service, and then have learners deliver the presentation for live feedback either in person, or using a web conferencing program.

Learning professionals now knowthat the best approach is often one that blends both live and on-demand.“

By Liz Couchon, Director of Sales Knowledge Management, Brainshark

Shark Tip

With the Brainshark Learning Cloud, trainers can identify the sessions that need to be held live, and repurpose the rest into dynamic video presentations that can be viewed anytime, anywhere.

Learn More

10 Designing a Scalable Sales Onboarding Program

Reinforce Where Needed

Many onboarding programs are created with the best intentions and blend on-demand and live courses. Material is delivered in the proper sequence and includes critical components, but the program still fails to get your new employees up-to-speed and productive quickly. This could be due to a lack of reinforcement of information critical to job function. When you create reinforcement activities for your onboarding program (follow-up quizzes, on-demand resources), you give your employees the opportunity to refresh knowledge and review subjects on an as-needed basis.

11 Designing a Scalable Sales Onboarding Program

When creating ‘just-in-time’ learning content for salespeople, there is one obvious (yet absolutely vital) point to keep in mind: at the end of the day, salespeople are primarily measured in terms of sales. You may create the most amazing learning opportunities ever, but ultimately they will be unsuccessful and a waste of valuable time if they don’t help improve sales. Therefore, the key to being a successful partner with your salespeople is to provide them with tools and learning that directly supports the accomplishment of their personal and business goals.

For many years, it was considered a dream to get to a stage where just-in-time learning was used only when needed, so no time and resources are unnecessarily squandered. However useful, until recently, this has been very difficult to accomplish. With the widespread use of mobile technology, this dream may finally become a reality because your salespeople always have access to the requisite learning content.

So what makes for effective just-in-time content for salespeople? Here are a few tips and considerations to keep in mind:

#1. Keep It Simple Simplify. Condense. Streamline. If you are able to provide what the salesperson needs in 30 seconds instead of one minute, then do it. If it is possible to eliminate even a single extra word or image, do it. To a salesperson time is (quite literally) money, so you want to make sure his or her learning time is spent wisely.

#2. Show Versus TellOne of the reasons video is so powerful is that it allows you to condense an incredible amount of learning into a small

space. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then one minute of video is worth a million. Successful salespeople are action-oriented, so actually showing them an example of how to do something via a short video presentation can be a highly effective learning opportunity.

#3. Fill the Immediate Need Focus on only providing the content that is needed, when it is needed, to address the immediate lack of knowledge or a challenge your salespeople may be having. As a result, learning becomes a more valuable tool in the sales process.

For example, if a salesperson is struggling to properly fill out a portion of a form, then in that moment they should receive a piece of micro-learning that only provides the instruction needed for that particular issue; not a 30-minute course on form completion. In this way, learning happens on the job, not as a separate activity.

#4. Don’t Delay For PerfectionA piece of learning content, such as a video presentation, does not have to be perfectly polished and refined to be effective. For salespeople, it is usually more important to have something that will help with a sale now rather than waiting for the perfect training content that arrives too late to be of use.

Content Creation Tips for ‘Just-in-Time’ LearnersBy Michael S. Helton, Director of Online Learning, Combined Insurance

12 Content Creation Tips for ‘Just-in-Time’ Learners

A goal of any training program is to deliver the most relevant and important information that employees need to know in order to do their jobs better. Of course, the challenge for learning and development professionals is in identifying the most pertinent information.

This is certainly true for sales training, where the person responsible for developing the training program (you!) might not always have the same level of expertise as others in or around your company.

That’s why working with subject matter experts (SME) is such a critical part of the training process; if you don’t know the answers, you need to find someone who does. As the instructional designer, it’s your job to: • Ask the right questions• Glean the right information• Convey that information to the people who need it – your sales team!

Like anything else, leveraging subject matter experts effectively takes practice, so here are some basic

goals to set at the beginning.

Know what to ask

The first thing to remember is that the SMEs you work with are going to have a ton of first-hand and technical expertise to share. In fact, they’re probably going to have more information than you really need. You will need to weed out the information that really matters to the audience and avoid getting off-track with topical tangents or irrelevant details.

This requires knowing the right questions to ask and having a plan in place before meeting with the SME. Oftentimes, it’s a good idea to meet with existing reps first to get an understanding of their processes, challenges and areas of confusion. In this case, your most valuable skill is the ability to listen. If you do this work

Leveraging Subject Matter Experts for Better Sales TrainingBy Amy O’Brien, Learning & Development Manager, Brainshark

ahead of time, you’ll be able to turn those tidbits into specific questions for SMEs and ensure you get the exact information you’re looking for.

Know who to ask

Next you need to isolate and identify the right people to work with. Sales execs and product managers will often play a role, but don’t overlook the value of reps themselves – especially the best ones. After all, your top salespeople are the ones who always hit their quotas, go on the annual club trips, and so on; they’re SMEs on the topic of doing their jobs really well. It’s up to you to find out what they’re doing differently so you can create the proper protocol and share that knowledge via training throughout your sales organization.

The big question is, how do you get

13 Leveraging Subject Matter Experts for Better Sales Training

That’s why working with subject matter experts is such a critical part of the training process; if you don’t know the answers, you need to find someone who does.

“

these SMEs – each with their own busy schedules and responsibilities – to become part of the training process? Don’t forget, people really like being put in the position of ‘technical expert.’ If you can limit the burden on their time and give them credit for their insights, they’re more likely to be motivated to be part of your program.

Know what to do with it all

Once you’ve gleaned the necessary information, you need to convey that information in a way that’s engaging and resonates with your reps. Live presentations, on-demand videos, quiz questions, case studies – this

content comes from you, but it’s fueled by the knowledge you’ve gained from your subject matter experts. While developing these learning resources, keep your SMEs involved to hone and refine your content.

In the end, many of the people throughout your organization have points of expertise that no one else can match, and your primary job is to listen. By doing so, not only will you develop more effective learning resources, but you’ll also be in better position to stay current with your training, innovate with fresh ideas, and ultimately, enable your learning program to grow.

Shark Tip

With Brainshark, informal learning materials can be created by just about anyone, relieving the pressure on corporate trainers and allowing SMEs to contribute more directly to the sales training process.

Learn More

14 Leveraging Subject Matter Experts for Better Sales Training

Brainshark enables companies to improve productivity with cloud-based business presentation solutions for sales, marketing and training. With Brainshark’s easy-to-use solutions, customers transform static documents such as PowerPoints into dynamic, mobile-ready content that can be accessed quickly and viewed as on-demand video presentations or presented live – anytime, anywhere.

They can also measure the effectiveness of their communications in ways never thought possible and use these insights to take action. Thousands of companies – including half of the Fortune 100 – and millions of individuals rely on Brainshark to increase the impact and reduce the cost of their business communications. Learn more at www.brainshark.com.

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