Is your sales training keeping up with developments in the selling environment?

There’s no doubt about it: today’s sales professionals are faced with unprecedented and important changes in their world of work:

Increased use of powerful online technology that allows faster access to real-time information. This helps accelerate the sales process…but also makes it harder for sales reps to focus, concentrate, and avoid distraction.
Higher levels of “information overload” from that same technology. The flood of data from company email, CRM systems, and personal use of knowledge tools like Google search has helped create an “I want it now” expectation from sales reps when it comes to job-related information access.
Intensifying response time compression, an increased pressure from customers and colleagues for “24/7” availability, increased speed of response, and reduced time out of field to quickly solve problems. Customers want answers faster…and so do today’s sales training participants.

These changes (and others like them) have made it more important than ever to deploy training that is simple, memorable, and quick-to-value for the sales team.

Yet many organizations still implement sales training that is overly complex, quickly forgotten, and slow to produce value for participants. Training that describes complicated sales process models that are hard to remember and apply. Training that makes logical sense, but is forgotten a month later in the field.

What can be done? Deployment of online training and tools is key to success. More importantly, increased focus on application of use of “chunks” of learning content in the field (such as that delivered by BayGroup International’s 100minutes™ solutions) can address the need for training delivered “when I need it, where I need it.”

At an even more fundamental level, the challenge involves designing sales training that addresses a basic psychological truth: the human brain can only hold and remember seven things at a time in “working memory.” In fact, recent research suggests fewer is better. That’s one reason BayGroup International sales training is designed with this in mind. For example, our sales negotiation methodology is built around:

Six fundamental Principles of Sales Negotiation that drive more effective planning;
A three-dimensional model for effective negotiation (Competitive, Collaborative, Creative); and
Five core negotiation behaviors that drive successful negotiation outcomes.

The results of this approach? Higher levels of user adoption of sales training content, more focused field coaching, increased “stickiness” of key skills…and both larger and more profitable customer relationships.

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