Is your sales team agile?

Are they empowered with the latest product information?

Do they have the tools to match a prospect with the perfect product for their needs?

If you answered no to any of these questions, then you should consider training your sales team with a Learning Experience Platform (LXP).

An LXP automatically empowers learners by putting them in control of their learning. Unlike traditional classroom training, learners choose their own modules based on AI-driven recommendations (aggregated from previous choices and interests).

Even though an LXP provides an on-demand experience, businesses still curate the content. Who doesn’t want their sales team to access business content instead of YouTube?

We have 5 tips to help you empower your sales teams with an LXP.

1) Why sales teams need to train in the flow of work

Your sales team needs information at their fingertips, literally.

They need it on their phones.

A great sales team contacts prospects via phone, email, in-person networking or social media sites. Unfortunately, only 88% of sales employees report full content access on their mobile devices.

Often salespeople only focus on closing the deal. If they can’t access content during the flow of work (i.e. during networking events or travel time), they won’t learn the content.

Without mobile, you’ll have a sales team falling behind on their professional development.

How can you keep them up-to-date?

By training them in the flow of work. If they can access their learning on the go, they’re more likely to complete it. Bite-sized, mobile-friendly learning modules are also perfect for busy learners with little down-time between calls or meetings. They’ll be able to fit 3-5 minutes of learning in-between calls or when they’re waiting for a meeting to start.

2) How to make every seller an “expert”

Hubspot research found a disconnect between the seller and buyer needs.

54% of buyers want to see a demo, but only 23% of salespeople want to talk about a demo during the first call.

How can an LXP help your sales team overcome this disconnect?

In the complex world of B2B selling, no one person can keep all of the relevant information in their heads. They need search navigation, preferably voice-enabled, to feed them relevant information at the right time.

Imagine that your prospect asks a detailed question about a feature. Instead of stalling or passing the buck, your seller can quickly find a video to show them via the LXP search navigation. Even better, the sample video could come from an existing customer to show how they leveraged the feature to achieve their objectives. This presents a fantastic opportunity to show social proof for your product.  By providing an LXP with relevant information, you’re equipping your team with a powerful learning tool, but a powerful sales tool.

Now, your sales team can quickly pivot in the conversation to tailor your product to the prospect’s unique needs.

3) Why choices = empowerment

Psychologists have found that human beings instinctually desire control.

As a profession, traditional sales metrics (i.e. quotas) remain largely out of the seller’s hands. They can’t control whether their prospect buys the product. Frustratingly, their behavior may not even affect the buyer’s decision. This lack of control can lead to burnout in your sales team, especially when paired with the high-stress, high-paced world of sales.

Traditional training materials also often take control away from learners. Instead of empowering learners, textbooks prescribe a narrow path to success and, ultimately, disempower learners.

How can an LXP provide an empowering training experience?

With an LXP, learners choose their own learning modules. An LXP also provides multiple modalities. Learners can choose to learn through video, text or audio. This choice puts the learner in control. Even if they don’t get to choose what they learn, at least they get to choose how they learn.

4) How to build a learning habit

Ever tried to form a habit only to discover you continually forget?

Habits eventually trump motivation because motivation always runs out eventually. We get tired. Our kids get sick. Or life just happens.

How can an LXP help make training a habit?

Notifications provide people with a way to form a new habit. Ideally, your sales team will consume bite-sized bits of training throughout their week. Unlike an LMS, an LXP can suggest the most relevant training for your employees. Then, the system will push out a notification for new or suggested training modules.

With data analytics, managers can also monitor completion rates or push “must-do” training to their teams. This function keeps everyone up-to-date on new product information.

5) Harness the power of virtual classrooms

Instructor-led training doesn’t scale well for global workforces. Flying instructors around the globe become expensive, not to mention paying for regional employees’ lodgings and meals.

Plus, how do you track everyone’s learning? You can’t.

An LXP can help you get more value out of virtual instructor-led training by integrating with other best-in-class learning software and improving the overall user experience.

By integrating with video conferencing software, such as Zoom, an LXP can make your learners feel more comfortable in a virtual classroom. Even though the training has gone virtual, this software gives learners the social experience of the classroom. Your LXP can also track completion to keep your workforce accountable during the training.

The best part? This integration improves the user experience. Users no longer need to manage multiple accounts or calendars. Your LXP makes scheduling virtual training seamless and easy. Employees simply log into their LXP account and with one click they open the other learning app.

An LXP can also integrate with interactive learning tools, such as virtual labs. Hands-on learning used to only happen in a classroom, but now lab simulators provide a similar experience. With tool integration, an LXP promises you the best learning tool for the job without impacting user experience. Users will feel like they’ve never left the LXP portal.

At the same time, the virtual tool can communicate data back to your LXP. You receive relevant assessment data on how well your employees have mastered certain concepts through LXP data analytics. You don’t need to collate learning data from different tools because all the tools can be tracked simultaneously in the LXP. This data can help you improve the learning experience and, ultimately, make people more successful in their job roles.

We’re aiming to create a new, and even better, digital learning experience with an LXP, not just a virtual classroom. Integrating your LXP with the best-in-class tools in your learning ecosystem ensures you give your workforce the best experience available. And who doesn’t want the best?

Why you need an LXP to empower your sales team

An Learning Experience Platform (LXP) ultimately empowers your sales team by putting their user experience first. Your team will love an LXP precisely because it puts their experience at the heart of learning. 

They receive these 5 benefits from an LXP:

1. Your team feels empowered by choices in their learning.
2. They can access information in the “flow of work.”
3. This access to information makes them experts.
4. Learning becomes a habit.
5. Virtual classrooms integrated with best-in-class learning tools.

With all of these benefits, what are you waiting for? Don’t you want to enable your sales team today?

Plus, when you empower your sales team, they’ll make more sales and better your bottom line.

We know other options for product training exist. You might even be wondering now if an LXP is truly the best solution. We’re aiming to answer that very question with our webinar: Are LXPs Suited to Provide Customer Training? Join Craig Weiss, CEO of FindanLMS, and Shanmugam K, Senior Director of Technology at Origin Learning, on April 2 at 11:00 am EST to find out!