Three Ways to Make Sales Training Really Work

Training today’s sales professional has never been more challenging. With longer and more complex sales cycles, selling to everyone from the user to the C-suite, and the constant change in products, salespeople need to retain a vast amount of information to achieve peak performance.

Add to that the fact that taking reps out of the field for training routinely runs in excess of $10,000 per rep, and it’s understandable that sales managers often feel incredible pressure to find a training program that really yields a return on investment.

Like many organizations, Ethicon (a Johnson & Johnson company) found pulling salespeople out of the field for training – and away from customers – inefficient and counterproductive. People couldn’t remember and apply much of what they learned, which impacted their confidence and sales numbers. They needed a better approach to optimize knowledge retention without cutting into customer time.

A New Age of Sales Training

Based on the incredible body of scientific research into brain function and learning that has developed in the last decade, new e-learning methods are changing the way sales professionals are trained. Ethicon launched a pilot program leveraging the three key scientific elements outlined below to deliver product and procedure training to a segment of its sales force.

1. Daily learning. Based on the principles of the spacing effect (aka interval reinforcement) and repeated retrieval (continuous testing), training is delivered in short, daily, Q&A bursts, which move information from short-term to long-term memory. These practices solidify pathways in the brain and facilitate instant recall when the learner needs to remember something.
2. Bite-size learning. Based on the concept of cognitive load, which means that people can digest and process only a small amount of information at one time, bite-size learning delivers information via three to five questions and answers per session. It’s fast and easy, but when done daily, studies prove it provides a cumulative effect of more information retained for the long term. It’s a perfect approach for busy sales reps; while they participate in continuous learning, it doesn’t take them away from critical sales time.
3. Gamification. Research in the gamification field also revealed that incorporating game mechanics into training better engages learners of all ages. By including friendly competition, recognition and rewards, and even social learning, people enjoy the experience more and embrace learning.

Using a platform based on these principles, Ethicon delivered three to five questions in five-minute daily sessions, focusing on information critical to daily sales performance. To better engage learners, gamification elements were added. As a result, a formal internal study showed that the sales force achieved more than 95 percent voluntary participation and significantly increased product knowledge.

Ethicon has now rolled this daily training to the entire sales team. Salespeople feel much more secure about their product knowledge. “There has been a 60 to 70 percent increase in confidence in the sales team,” reports John Knoble, director of sales learning at Ethicon.

Fun, fast, and easy: sales training doesn’t have to be expensive and time consuming to be effective, and while kickoff meetings, learning portals, and existing learning-management systems continue to be an important part of the learning continuum, these new solutions create a more profound learning experience, which means a better return on investment. This is good news for businesses and their sales professionals alike.