Last month I discussed several key components required to develop and design an effective sales training program. What I’d like to do this month is offer several tools to help with the design and delivery of your sales training program. There are two basic ways to provide training, onsite and remotely.
The tools I’ll show here will help you develop a remote training program.
I believe face-face training is still the most effective delivery method, but as is the case with many ISOs hiring across the country, it isn’t feasible or cost-effective to bring all your new hires in for an onsite training program. By developing a remote training program you will have the ability to train more salespeople, more often for less money.
Don’t forget, people absorb information in three main ways; visual, auditory (hearing) and kinesthetic (feeling or doing). Make sure your program covers all three communication modalities. Recent studies have shown that people learn better with multimedia training; they remember what they learn more accurately and longer, and they are better able to use what they learn to improve their performance.
What is multimedia training? Multimedia training is a type of computer/internet-based training that uses two or more forms of media, including text, graphics, animation, audio and video. In practice, multimedia uses a variety of media forms that are practical to produce a colorful and engaging program.
Here are several tools that can help you design and deliver a top- notch program:
Tool #1 – Microsoft PowerPoint
PowerPoint has been an excellent tool for years and is probably the most used training development tool on the market. PowerPoint allows you to add audio, graphics, charts and images to your presentation.
You can even purchase pre-designed high-resolution PowerPoint templates to be used for your training material. There are many services that can help you present training material to an online audience (webinar), two popular solutions are; Webex (www.webex.com) and GoToMeeting (www.gotomeeting.com.)
Tool #2 - PowerPoint Flash Converter
Although PowerPoint is a great tool, many people still do not own the program, if they want to view the presentation, so they will have to download a PowerPoint viewer software. In addition, the more graphics, images and slides in the presentation, the larger the file size which can cause a hindrance for salespeople on a low speed internet connection. If you’re creating a large file in PowerPoint, I would recommend a flash converter program. These programs convert a PowerPoint file into a smaller flash format and allow the presentation to be viewed without a PowerPoint license. Another great benefit is that once the file is converted it cannot be edited or changed, so your content is safe.
Two great solutions are Presentation Pro (www.presentationpro.com) and Viewlet presenter by iMedia Learn (http://netron.imediasoft.net.) Both offer free trial versions.
Tool #3 – 24/7 Audio Training
Another great tool is audio training. This type of training is easily customized and uploaded to your agent training website for quick access 24/7. By giving agents access to audio training, they have the flexibility to attend training on their schedule. Instant Audio is a great program and can be found at www.instantaudio.com. They host all the audio files on their server, so the process is fairly painless.
Creating an audio is easy, just record your training, upload the audio file and you are ready to publish the audio training. Mike Stewart, the internet audio guy, offers a more professional audio training which enables you to create high quality mp3 files for training (www.theinternetaudioguy.com).
Tool #4 – Telephone Training
One of the most effective training techniques is telephone training.
Not only does it reduce cost and overhead but it also allows live interaction with your field sales force. It’s best to limit telephone training to 30-45 minutes. You can record your live training, so salespeople can access it.
The ability to conduct remote training removes the barriers of time and geography. Remote sales training allows participants to study at work, home or anywhere they have access to an Internet connection.
Day or night, your salespeople have training readily available. The convenience of internet accessibility significantly reduces the time invested in off-site seminars and dramatically increases participation among your trainees.
An excellent training program is a must, good training keeps salespeople engaged and productive. If you’re looking to provide a top-notch program offer a variety of training methods that can be accessed 24/7 and you will create a more highly trained salesperson that produces more business on a consistent basis. 
|
