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Sales Enablement Leader Qstream Shares Best Practices for Companies to Reinforce Sales Proficiency, Help Drive Revenues All Year Long
Burlington, MA, January 15, 2019 – Qstream, makers of software that uses science, data, and mobile technology to prompt meaningful behavior change, today shared four tips to help organizations maintain their sales kickoff momentum and help drive increased revenues throughout the year.
Most businesses make a significant time and financial investment at the start of the year to bring together the sales team for annual planning and training. However, the momentum coming out of that sales kickoff is often lost in just weeks. According to a science-backed phenomenon known as the Forgetting Curve, up to 79 percent of learned knowledge is forgotten within the course of 30 days.
“So much goes into the planning and execution of annual sales kickoffs, yet they take place over a very short period of time and typically only once a year,” said Gary Greenberger, Qstream’s VP, Sales. “This makes it challenging for reps to learn and retain the critical information they need to effectively sell products and services to customers. This is a particular concern in markets like technology, financial services, and life sciences that require reps to have a deep understanding of product details and industry regulations. Qstream’s best practice microlearning solution drives knowledge proficiency in the flow of work, and arms managers with the insights they need to help individual reps improve specific knowledge gaps. All this equates to superior return on investment in the form of increased sales revenues.”
Here are four tips from Qstream to help keep sales kick-off momentum all year long:
- Focus on Sales Proficiency: Sales proficiency focuses on what sales reps know, or don’t know, and whether they can apply that knowledge in their daily interactions with customers and prospects – in other words, how well skilled they are at their job. However, without insight into the sales proficiency of each rep after kick-off, sales managers can’t coach on the areas that will have the greatest or most immediate impact on revenue. Best practice sales microlearning drives continuous improvement long after sales kick-off and gives managers the insights they need to develop more effective training and coaching paths to support each rep’s unique needs throughout the year.
- Don’t Consider the Sales Kickoff a “One-and-Done” Training Opportunity: Sales enablement leaders need to shift their focus to reinforcing knowledge and skills over time through best practice microlearning. This approach breaks complex training content into more digestible pieces and ensures sales reps are better able to recall information and apply newly learned skills in the field sooner and with lasting effect. This scientifically proven approach increases knowledge retention by up to 170 percent and gives visibility at individual rep level to know what has been mastered and retained from the sales kick-off, and where there are gaps to coach against.
- Make it in the Moment: Once the sales kick-off is over, your sales force should be applying the new skills and knowledge gained, not back in the classroom. Sales enablement leaders can benefit from mobile training tools that engage reps in-the-moment, on-the-go, via their mobile device in minutes a day. Because sales reps generally live on their mobile device or laptop, sales training becomes a continuous “always-on” process within the daily flow of work and does not eat into valuable time with the customer. Sales enablement leaders also benefit by delivering a consistent training experience to every rep, no matter where they are located. Adding real-time feedback from front line managers keeps reps feeling engaged and supported in their personal development path.
- Make it Measurable: Microlearning helps guide managers to pinpoint knowledge or skill gaps with quantitative, precise, real-time data. By overlaying sales proficiency data (strengths and weaknesses) with sales performance metrics (win rates, pipeline growth, and average deal size) each quarter following kick-off, sales leaders have data-driven leading indicators to craft a personalized, and therefore more efficient, approach to sales development at scale. This lets them address each sales rep’s unique shortcomings with precise, targeted coaching. Supported by visual dashboards and reports to understand skills proficiency at each stage of the sales process, sales leadership can gain more confidence in forecasts. According to CSO Insights, a dynamic approach such as this yields up to 66-percent higher win rates.
