Does it feel like sales training isn’t quite what it used to be?

Just a few years ago, your sales training depended primarily on teaching your team better phone skills to close a sale. You could depend on cold calling a certain number of prospects to generate a certain number of sales. You could depend on old-fashioned methods to help your team meet their targets.

But the world doesn’t work that way anymore.

Sales playbooks have changed. Today, sales representatives depend on technology to guide their potential buyer’s journey as much as they depend on their own interpersonal skills.

Unmistakably, Sales training has evolved with them as representatives need more training as they adjust to working with new technology. Your training solution needs to keep up with this new paradigm.

Training can’t just happen once a year at the Annual Sales Summit anymore. Sales representatives require continuous training to stay up-to-date about the latest product offerings and to adopt best practices for high-tech tools.

Salesforce found these 4 characteristics of high-performing sales teams in their third annual “State of Sales” report. Top sales teams are:

1. Using Data to drive decisions — Top 24% of sales teams are 1.5 times more likely to use data-driven insights.
2. Engaged in Collaborative Selling — High-performing sales teams collaborate with service reps to proactively learn about new opportunities.
3. Creating Personalized Customer Experiences — Top 20% of teams are 2.8 times more likely to personalize customer interactions.
4. Adopting Artificial intelligence (AI) or Automation — High performing teams are 2.3 percent more likely than underperformers to use smart technology.

How will your sales team learn these 4 important characteristics?

Do you want your sales team to learn key skills from a Google search? Wouldn’t you rather have a hand in teaching them the ropes? Wouldn’t you like to guide them? And, wouldn’t you like technology that could give you the tools to lead your sales team into the future?

With an LXP, you can. This blog will show you how an LXP can help you train your team for the future of sales.

How to train data-driven sellers

Salesforce proved data-driven insights improve sales metrics. Sadly, only 46% of sales reps have access to the data they need, even though 85% said it would make them more effective. Roughly 40% of sales reps, according to this data, want to learn how to use data analytics.

When you give your sales team access to the customer data, they need to be taught how to use it. Sales reps often come from a variety of backgrounds so they may need help acquiring the hard skills related to data analytics. Then, they need to leverage customer data to create forecasts and prioritize leads. At the same time, they’ll also need to learn how to connect the hard data to the soft skills necessary to deepen their relationship with a potential client.

An LXP can generate courses to help you measure your sales teams’ ability to leverage data. You’ll be able to give them various scenarios and see how they use fictional data. Not only will fictional data in course help your team learn, you’ll be able to tease out any weak spots from the high-level data provided by your LXP.

How to train for collaborative selling

In the new world of collaborative selling, an LXP can connect different parts of your organization together through training. Instead of separating people into different classrooms for sellers and service reps, you can foster a collaborative approach through e-learning that leads to higher conversion rates and increased opportunities for upselling.

Your LXP also allows you to manage blended training options. It can integrate with best-in-class video conferencing software to create virtual classrooms. A cloud-based platform also allows mentors to be geographically distant, but still stay highly connected. By placing service reps and sales reps in the same classes, you can foster the relationships necessary for collaborative selling.

How to create personalized customer journeys

Even with high tech tools, personalized customer journeys remain a challenge for any sales team. How can you create standardized training to account for the complexities of a personalized customer journey?

Luckily, you don’t have to.

Your sales reps can do it for you because an LXP is designed to incorporate user-generated content. They can create, upload and share content specific to your company. They can help each other learn techniques that work in their specific contexts with their prospects. You can open expert Q&As or create peer-to-peer forums to support sales reps in their search for the personalized customer journey. Together, your sales team will learn ways to make your potential clients feel loved and special.

How to enhance digital adoption for new technologies using sales training

With new AI and automation technologies, learning in the flow of work will become more important to drive digital adoption by your sales team. Just because they have advanced technology doesn’t mean you’ll reap the benefits unless they can use it efficiently.

An LXP can help your team adopt new technology efficiently and help them improve their skills beyond a one-time classroom training. Plus, it’s scalable and highly efficient. Instead of waiting for instructors to deliver 1000+ sessions over a number of months, you can train everyone in a matter of weeks.

Are you ready to improve your sales training?

If you said yes, then take a look at the top characteristics of high performing sales teams in 2020 again:

1. Data-driven decision-makers
2. Personalized experience creators
3. Collaborative teammates
4. AI-enabled sellers

This list gives anyone room to grow. AI adoption alone is projected to increase by 139% in the next three years. This statistic suggests the world of sales will be changing.

How will you keep your team up-to-date?

With an LXP, you’ll be able to train your team quickly and easily on the latest technology. At the same time, you can still hone traditional soft skills with mentorship and user-generated content. 

Try a demo today to find out how our cloud-based Learning Experience Platform, Fractal LXP, can help you close your sales teams’ skills gaps and take them into the future of sales.