How to Overcome Ongoing Training Challenges for Remote Workers

As your company expands and launches new offices across the country and internationally, the once intimate environment that was once so effective for training becomes less feasible with employees working remotely from the central office. For one, it’s hard to keep everyone up to speed when they’re geographically dispersed. You could fly the remote workers to New York for training, but that is expensive and you’ll have to get permission to do so. There has to be a more efficient solution. Also, when companies expand, two corporate cultures can develop and this can be a disaster.

Sometimes satellite offices can have as few as 2-3 employees and they never get visited by the leadership team. A person joining such a team can very easily feel undervalued and marginalized. Here’s where online training, and more specifically blended learning, can come in handy in making sure that your remote team has access to the same great training as your headquarters (HQ) team.

Is Online Learning Really Good Enough for Remote Staff?

Not surprisingly, the transition to online learning for your remote team will raise many questions for you.

For example, isn’t clocking in face-time important for engagement? Won’t online learning sacrifice the high touch experience that you get from face-to-face learning? Will you be able to deliver on the same learning perspective to your remote trainees online? Also, what happens to the PowerPoints and other materials that you use? How do you begin to make your course materials online ready? These are good questions but there are other equally important challenges that you may not have considered!

  • Tracking Employee Performance. For one, how can you measure the performance of remote workers? After all, it’s important to keep track of whether employees are performing up to the standards. Not to mention that you have to analyze the effectiveness of your program in developing relevant skills and productivity.
  • Foster Social Engagement Between Remote and HQ employees. Establishing personal interaction among all employees is necessary to encourage collaboration, but it’s challenging to create if everyone is not in the same geographical location. Are there communication or social media tools that can allow remote workers to feel up to speed and not alienated from the employees in the central office?
  • How to Use the Dynamics of “Gamification”. Gamification has proven to encourage participation and productivity in a workplace – the concept of using game mechanics when training is a great way to engage new remote hires! How can you apply gamification to increase learning, team building, innovation, and the satisfaction of remote workers?
  • How to Use the Right Technologies. As your training program transitions from face-to-face learning to online-based learning, technology will play a bigger role as a resource. You’ll need to think about what technology would be appropriate to achieve effective sharing of information, communication, and can deliver an engaging experience.
  • Language Localization. If you are going international, international offices can create language barriers. How can these barriers be broken? And how will you ensure that foreign speakers are equally engaged to the informational materials given to them as your native English speakers are?

Steps to Establish a Stellar Learning Experience for Remote Workers

Step 1: Define Your Success Criteria

First, make sure that you and management understand what is needed to make the training program successful for your company. Know your organization’s goals and define what behaviors the team needs to get there. These are the behaviors that you then reinforce in your training program. However, with multiple goals to tackle and limited resources, you can’t hit everything. Use these two questions as a framework to identify where to begin when you have limited resources.

Question 1: Should You Repurpose Content or Create New Programs From Scratch?

You will have to think about whether you want to create a new training program from scratch or use existing materials. Repurposing content would mean, for example, that you convert the content from your PowerPoints into eLearning modules.

This may be far less costly and time-consuming than creating completely new content. However, creating new content may also be necessary to fill information gaps that remote workers may not have access to.

Question 2: What is More Important Right Now, Scale or Effectiveness?

You also need to consider your priorities – do you want a few highly trained employees or rapid rollout of training sacrificing high touch training elements? Often, in the earlier stages of business, the first few hires have a lot of impact on the company so high touch training is valuable. However, as the company undergoes rapid expansion, high touch training becomes a less efficient process. In an illustrative example, one of our clients, a fast growing, mobile ad network, realized this challenge when they got to 100+ employees and they continued to stick with a very high touch onboarding process for their new hires. They soon realized that they weren’t having onboarding sessions for several weeks when the founders were gone on overseas business trips. Using Mindtickle, they were able to flip the training process and codify the key messages and orientation information for the new hires. This freed up energy for leaders to deliver the strategic content in intimate coffee chats, allowing for a meaningful exchange of ideas. Now the Co-founders spend more quality time with their new hires after they have gone through the online onboarding experience.

Step 2: Recognize the Learning Culture

Next, be aware of the learning culture at your company. Is it a “learning culture,” where improving performance, knowledge, and skills are encouraged? If this is not the case, a “change management” investment may be required so that the right incentives are put in place to motivate employees. This is important to consider because your training program will be easier to launch and more successful in a culture that already invests in ongoing learning. Setting relevant principles, values, and preferred behaviors from management down help to paint a clear picture of what all employees should be striving for.

Step 3: What Approach to Take: Staged Rollout or Big Bang

In terms of implementing change in a business, big bang refers to instant adoption and staging rollout refers to more gradual adoption over an extended period of time. Consider both options and determine which is the more appropriate approach for your situation. The big bang adoption could be faster and cheaper but more overwhelming and prone to failure due to inability to adapt and substantial productivity loss while everyone is adjusting to change. On the other hand, staging rollout may be more time and cost consuming but there is more time to adapt and productivity loss is less critical.

Step 4: Know What Resources You Have at Your Disposal

While transforming the training program to meet the learning needs of all employees, consider the resources that you already have and how you can adapt it to a more online-based system. What technologies does your company already possess and how can you take advantage of employees’ subject matter expertise in order to create an efficient and effective training program.

Step 5: Create a System to Achieve Your Goals

You should not only focus on what to achieve but also how to achieve it! You can set goals but you also need to create an effective management and training system. For example, what are the specific training processes that should be introduced and the right timing? How does the training program need to tie in with performance management? How should the training promote work-related habits to reinforce positive outcomes?

Remote employees don’t have to feel like orphans or second-rate citizens. Blended learning combines internet-based learning with face-to-face learning in order to create a personalized and engaging learning experience. It has the potential to decrease training costs, increase employee engagement with training, and adapt to the individual needs of each employee.

With a blended learning model and some effort, your remote employees can have access to a high-quality learning experience – the same as their colleagues over in HQ! Now it is your turn. Let us know your thoughts. How do you keep your remote employees up to speed with training?


5 New Hire Training Mistakes That Can Be Easily Avoided

By avoiding common new hire training mistakes, you will make the transition much more seamless
You have spent valuable time, effort, and investment (both financial and emotional) on recruiting new talent, and it is now time to onboard them.  While your “new hire” may have the skill set that you are looking for, they may have no clue where to begin! Successful onboarding requires a structured approach, open communication, and effort from both the new employee and your company. Mistakes are bound to happen, but by avoiding common new hire training mistakes, you will make the transition much more seamless. Here are the top 5 new hire training mistakes that can be easily avoided, from the smallest to the biggest:

Onboarding Mistake #5: impersonal communication (especially for remote new hires)

In the world of mobile technology, telecommuting and remote offices have become the norm. Unfortunately, when it comes to onboarding, this setup can be extremely difficult.
Fallout:When communication only happens over email or the phone, simple requests such as changes to a project or handing out assignments can be interpreted a million different ways. This can lead to costly mistakes and lower productivity as your new hire struggles to make sense of their new environment.
Fix: If you are onboarding a new, remote employee, opt for phone calls and video chat where you can both hear the tone of voice and immediately ask clarifying questions. You might also facilitate online communication through a social network among your team members. Additional social networking activities should be sprinkled throughout the orientation period. Read this article on New Employee Orientation for Remote Members of Your Team for more tips for onboarding remote employees.

Onboarding Mistake #4: Not spending enough time on culture assimilation

It is important to inform your new hire about company traditions such as casual Friday or where people all go to lunch together on Tuesday. No one wants to be the new person that has to figure these things out on their own as they go, and these items will probably not be covered in any training manual.
Fallout:Not clearly communicating your business culture and traditions can undermine your new hire training efforts. The challenge arises when your employee is blindsided by a cultural norm or tradition that they don’t expect (or worse – one that doesn’t fit their values). Not feeling like they “belong” in your business can lead to loss of productivity, low morale, increased absenteeism and high turnover. For example, if your office typically has a high-stress, last-minute-panic type of environment, don’t try to pretend that your company’s culture is calm and relaxed. Eventually, your new hire will discover the truth about your culture and they may not be equipped to handle it.
Fix: Make sure you set your new employees’ expectations to truly reflect your company’s culture. Be upfront about your company’s culture, expectations, and goals from day one by building elements that showcase your culture and traditions into your online training. Rather than forcing them to learn by trial and error, you’ll let your new hire in on how things work so they can easily assimilate and feel part of the team. We have found that online videos of the leaders of organizations talking about “what worked? ” and “what did not work for them?”,along with Q&A online discussion threads can be very effective in creating a scalable, yet two-way conversation.

Onboarding Mistake #3: Not providing follow-up or listening to feedback

Olympians did not become experts overnight and neither will your new employee. Just because they have completed their initial orientation, does not mean they’re ready to be shoved out into the world without a lifeline.
Fallout:Put yourself in the shoes of your new hire. Imagine that you just went through a 1-day new hire orientation program. Now that the orientation has ended, you are on your own. There is no support in sight and no plan to help you continue to get up to speed. You may feel frustrated and like you’ve been thrown to the wolves! According to an Inc.com article on employee onboarding, this can have a negative impact on employee retention, “When we’re talking about onboarding and an employee’s first ninety days on the job, what we’re really talking about is employee retention,” Thomas says. “Without a proper plan for bringing new employees on board, managers run the risk of miscommunication of goals and expectations, sub-par performance, lower morale, bad decisions, and potentially a financial loss in the form of employee turnover.”
Fix:The questions that a new employee has on day 1 are going to be different from the questions they have on day 20. Check-in with your new employee even after you have onboarded them. See how they are adjusting or if they have any questions, and make sure they are feeling comfortable and confident. Following up with the learners about their experience over the first 90 days helps you gauge the effectiveness of the orientation program and be able to improve it. Consider introducing simple online surveys on day 1, day 30 and day 90 to gauge new hire engagement and monitor these over a period of time as you roll out new initiatives for the new hires.

Onboarding Mistake #2: Not introducing people they will be working with

New hires need to know who to direct their questions to as well as the key people that can help them to succeed in their new role. This should not be limited to just the people in their immediate team and should also include people who can indirectly help them to succeed within your organization.
Fallout:If your new hire fails to make connections and build an internal network within your company, they will not be successful. In order to succeed, your employee needs to understand the politics behind how your organization gets things done. Without this insight, your new hire’s ability to navigate their way forward will be stalled – they will be less effective and less productive.
Fix:Technology makes online mentoring and shadowing cost-effective for organizations with offices anywhere in the world. For example, we often provide a “Getting to Know the Organization” module early on in the process, which explains what the various areas of the organization do and who their key players are. The follow-up activity to this module is an exercise in which the new-hires make contact with those key players who are most directly connected to the new hire’s job. A buddy system can be very effective as well.

Onboarding Mistake #1: Not having a structured new hire onboarding program 

AND the biggest mistake you can make is… not having a well-defined new hire onboarding program in the first place. It does not have to be elaborate, but a structured approach that aligns well with the stage of your organization and the needs of the new hires. Don’t leave new hire onboarding to chance!
Fallout: Approximately 35% of companies spend $0 on onboarding. But its not just about spending money; most of these organizations do not offer any onboarding at all. This sadly leaves their new employees critically under-prepared for their first 90 days and beyond. As a result, these firms are losing talent.
how long is your new hire orientation
Source: Kaiser Associates, Inc., Stein, Christiansen How long is your organization’s onboarding program? 6 December 2013
Studies show that a large proportion of staff turnover, as high as 20%, can happen within the first 45 days. Keep in mind that it costs between $3,000 and $18,000 to replace quitters!
Fix: For most organizations who have limited structured onboarding programs, we have found that the key challenge preventing them from implementing such a program is typically the absence of resources and knowledge. Short of going out and hiring an onboarding consultant, there are simple new hire orientation best practices that can help move the needle. And guess what? Many of these best practices can now be implemented using software solutions! You can take advantage of specialized new hire onboarding technology, which comes ready with templates and professional services of experts and not just software. You will be surprised to find out how much you can accomplish in just 3-4 weeks by inserting your existing content and knowledge into these templates.
To achieve success, onboarding programs should deliver a more seamless experience that is integrated with your business processes. To get you started with designing your new employee onboarding program, read our article Run an Effective New Hire Onboarding Program With These 4 Key Pillars and get started with four organizing pillars:

  1. Early career support.
  2. Orientation to your culture and performance values.
  3. Insight into your strategic position, intent, and direction.
  4. Activities that enable your new hire to build beneficial relationships.
4 Pillars Framework
Source: Kaiser Associates, Inc. 14 May 2013

Remember, the ultimate goal is to help your new employee quickly and efficiently become a contributing team member, and that can only happen if he/she has assimilated the training and overcome roadblocks.

New Employee Orientation Best Practices – Measure

ew employee orientation best practices are fundamental to the success of any new hire orientation and it begins with measurement.

Now that your organization has a new employee orientation program, it is time to determine if it is a success.  In order to determine if it is a success or not, it is important to ask yourself the following questions:

  1. Did you measure the outcomes?
  2. What outcomes should you measure?
  3. How did you measure?

Let’s address each of these million dollar questions.

It is important to start with the BIG picture. Measure those aspects that directly contribute to your business goals. Establish a baseline, which is more or less similar for most organizations – rate of employee turnover or retention, time to productivity, and employee satisfaction.

Once the areas to be measured are identified, integrate corresponding methods for periodic assessments. The exact metrics and methods depend on your company size, employee demographics, and business objectives, but it is most important to establish upfront what needs to be measured, why, and when.

Numbers say it all – Quantitative Metrics

Addressing employee turnover and employee productivity are key when following new employee orientation best practices.

Headache of the Modern business – Employee Turnover

This critical figure helps you identify the success of an onboarding program as it is directly tied to the business goals of the organization. Organizations can compare employee turnover figures before and after the inclusion of a new hire orientation program.

Productivity

Productivity metrics associated with business and support functions could help determine the business contribution of new hires, and thus the effectiveness of a new hire orientation program. In the absence of past organizational data, Michael Watkins’ average of 6.2 months can be used as a break-even point for new hires.

Following new employee orientation best practices, organizations would do well to automate measurements using onboarding software. Usually, SaaS-based, these onboarding software help capture data pertaining to performance, onboarding checklists, training schedules, and milestones.

The Human Element – Qualitative Data

Apart from the above specific data points, there is a need to capture qualitative attributes in relation to the new hires. An organization could see increased retention rates, but it may be worthwhile to see if that was accompanied with enthusiasm and ownership, not just of the new hires, but also of all stakeholders.

Onboarding managers need to conduct periodic assessments to assess goals, both with respect to the new employee and the employer. Such periodic assessments could cover the following:

New Employee Engagement – How Engaged is the New Hire?

The answer to this question clearly indicates the effectiveness and success of your new hire onboarding program. But, how do you actually measure if an employee is engaged enough?

a) Pre-Onboarding / First Few Weeks

Assess the needs and wants of the new hire early, as early as the pre-onboarding phase or the first week of joining. This information can be obtained by simply asking a few questions to the new hire and also consulting the hiring manager. It is critical to plan the coming months of the new hire.

b) The First 30 to 90 Days and beyond

Regular interviews with the new hire covering the following topics would give a sense of engagement levels.

  • Company culture and job
  • Role in the team
  • Challenges
  • Alignment with company goals

The timeline of these interviews will depend on the needs of organization.

Take Continuous Feedback from New Hires

Feedback sessions are important for mid-course corrections. This may also be a good opportunity to put forward the company’s expectations from the new hire, instead of waiting for the end of the probation period.

Exclusive Performance Appraisal Process for New Hires

Organizations should complement a formal new employee orientation program with a corresponding performance appraisal process that is exclusive for new hires. In addition to assessing the new hire directly, this appraisal should obtain feedback from the new hire’s peers, subordinates, manager, and the human resources team.

This would ensure that the organization goals in respect to the new hires are achieved. An exclusive new hire appraisal process would increase the chances of bringing out the effectiveness of the new employee orientation program.

Quantitative and qualitative measurements are both important in determining the effectiveness of a new employee orientation program. It is vital that the two sets of measurements corroborate each other. Positive correlation between the two would increase your confidence levels in the measurement process, whereas a negative correlation would mean going back to the drawing board.

Leave us a comment and tell us all about your organization’s experience in measuring the implementation of new employee orientation best practices!

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The First Three Things A Sales Enablement Manager Should Do

Picture this: It’s Sam’s first day on the job as a sales enablement manager for Fast Growth Inc., a rapidly expanding tech company, and he’s feeling daunted, to say the least. He’s Fast Growth Inc.’s first-ever enablement specialist. There’s a lot to be done to improve sales productivity and equip the sales reps, and it’s overwhelming for him to decide where to start. It would be easy to spin his wheels for the first few months, but Fast Growth Inc. is on a fast trajectory and are keen to see some quick results. Sound familiar?

This scenario is one that many sales enablement leaders have either faced in their careers or currently face. But not to worry, we’re here to help Sam (and you) get the most out of the next 90 days. Here’s where to start:

1. Audit rep’s sales readiness

To date, Fast Growth Inc.’s approach to sales readiness has been ad hoc, which is no surprise given their team has grown quickly and is planned to expand from 25 to 100 in the next six months. There’s a ton of product and buyer information in wiki documents, emails, and PDFs that grows each week as new product features and bug fixes are introduced. On top of that, each sales manager has their own way to train and keep their staff up to speed. But there’s no standard way to determine whether the sales reps have absorbed all this information, identify what knowledge gaps they have, and if they’re actually really sales ready.

By conducting an audit of all the existing training and product content for both new and seasoned reps, Sam can see where there may be content gaps, and also determine if there is perhaps some content that the sales reps don’t really consume at all. It may be in a format that is not engaging or difficult to understand, or perhaps it’s not really relevant to them at all. At this stage, it’s important for Sam to look at the existing training content objectively, and decide what really is the most important information for these sales reps. For example, as Fast Growth Inc. is a SaaS business it will be most helpful for the reps to have access to use case studies, whereas if it was into big data perhaps detailed training on product features would be more relevant to them.

As part of this process, Sam will also need to identify who owns what content. It’s quite possible there’s some content that doesn’t have clear accountability at all, and Sam may have to broker responsibility for it to ensure that all the relevant information is shared regularly. He’ll need to look beyond the sales managers and build relationships with other business units that may have information that should be included in the sales training content, like the product, marketing, and the customer success teams. These relationships will continue to be important as his role develops over time, with Sam becoming a critical link between the sales reps and these parts of the business.

Once Sam has audited all of the content, he can look at how it’s set out and determine if there is a better way to structure the sales training so that it’s more robust. One of the best ways to look at how effective the training is to use a data-driven approach. Can he measure how knowledgeable a sales rep is once they’ve completed the training? How engaged are they with the training? Is the information in a format that is easily consumed by sales reps, or does the delivery of it need to be improved?

By looking at the training materials objectively, Sam can then identify what the most important information required is and prioritize that. Like with most things, 20% of the content required for sales training should deal with about 80% of the situations faced by sales reps, so having these easily accessible to them should be priority number 1 for Sam.

With so many new reps coming in Fast Growth Inc.’s doors in the next few months, it’s also important that he considers the sales onboarding program and how that should be structured as part of the overall sales training for the company.

2. Enable managers to coach better

The sales managers at Fast Growth Inc have been responsible for both training and coaching the sales reps, but this has changed now with Sam coming on board. The training will be managed by Sam. This doesn’t mean the sales managers aren’t involved though, Sam takes Sales managers to help by recording their pitches, success stories etc.

While the role of coaching sales reps is still left to the sales manager, Sam ~~ equip them with tools that will help them, coach, more efficiently. This should then free up the sales managers so that they can spend more of their valuable time on coaching complex scenarios and advanced problems like objection handling.

The first step Sam can take here is by putting in place the elements to enable sales managers to implement a structured coaching program for their reps. This should at least cover the basics of Sales 101 like prospecting and pitching, using quizzes or certifications that identify where reps have skill gaps so that he can then determine what specific areas their coaching plan should focus on.

One of the best ways to do this is by creating coaching maps for each stage of the sales process and then developing tools or exercises that the sales manager can select to coach their reps in different areas. For example, to coach reps who are struggling to define their value proposition to a customer, Sam can set up an exercise where the rep can record themselves doing a pitch and this can then be reviewed by the sales manager in the coaching session. By setting up a range of tools and exercises like this, the sales manager can then easily implement a structured coaching plan for individual reps.

sales enablementRef: Tamara Schenk webinar on “How to equip your sales managers”

With sales managers free to coach on more complex issues, and sales reps’ skill gaps being addressed, there should be a marked change in win rates and sales results. In fact, CSO Insights research indicates that 62.4% of reps will make a plan if there’s a formal plan in place compared to just 53.1% where there’s no coaching plan. Furthermore, an additional 10% of quota will be achieved when a formal plan is in place, which is a great quick win for Sam.

3. Create a sales enablement framework

The final thing that Sam can do in his first few months on the job is to create a robust data driven sales enablement framework. This involves looking at what the sales reps and managers must do in their roles at every stage of the sales process, identify what they need to be able to complete these tasks effectively.

The framework should cover everything from the type of sales collaterals they need, to the tools and technology they use to complete their job. Once Sam has mapped this out for each part of the sales process, he should then ask himself whether the sales reps (and managers) have enough information at each stage of the process to have a meaningful discussion with a prospect. If he concludes that they don’t, then he will need to identify what is required to fill that gap and enable the sales rep.

The gaps in the sales enablement framework could be sales collateral, access to product updates, industry or competitor information, or an understanding of how to use the CRM. In some instances, the information may exist but it may not be readily accessible to the sales rep when they need it, so perhaps mobile sales enablement is a priority. In simple terms, the purpose of sales enablement is to make it easier for sales reps and managers to do their job at any point in time, and this should be the focus of the sales enablement framework.

By achieving these three things, Sam will be able to show the VP of Sales that the sales team is more productive and sales ready than they were three months ago. The next stage for Sam will be to plug the gaps he’s identified in the sales enablement framework and build on the great work he’s started in his first 90 days.

How to Introduce Informal Learning into New Hire Orientation: a 7-Point Action Plan

Research says informal learning is most effective. Can we actually design informal learning and have strategies and structures around it, say for new hire orientation?

Most experts would agree that a great majority (upward of 70 percent) of workplace learning is informal. But, designing a formal strategy for informal learning is always a challenge, because of the very nature of informal learning which is serendipitous and unstructured. So let me share my learning and strategies, from the design and implementation of social learning programs for thousands of users and numerous customer contexts. In this blog, though we use the context of new hire orientation, the concepts are applicable to a wider range of learning situations.

Informal learning: organizational context has a role

The degree of informal learning depends heavily on the organizational context. An organization that comes across as prescriptive and does not make the new employee comfortable with sharing and expressing, will find it challenging in making employees adopt informal learning channels. e.g. Yammer (ESN – Enterprise Social Networking) adoption has seen huge variance across organizations. While community managers and leadership commitment make a difference, the primary driver is “Would I as an employee feel comfortable sharing my point of view, without the fear of being judged or reprimanded?”. So first things first, an “informal” employee survey to assess the organizational context. But with new employees, there is also an opportunity to break the current organizational mold and provide a fresh experience without baggage.

  1. Online community is low-hanging fruit. Start by building a community for new employees, online is definitely recommended and real-life physical communities are also great if budget and location constraints allow. But definitely create an online platform for social engagement and get all new employees to participate, potentially, even before joining. Pre-Onboarding – the period between the day of the offer and the day of joining is a huge untapped opportunity for most companies.
  2. Give it an informal and fun branding. You don’t have to necessarily label it as a learning community. Start with engagement activities such as quizzes, contests, video contests and team achievements. You will be surprised to see how quickly the community starts to take shape – comments, likes, discussions start flowing in and the network effect kick in once critical mass is achieved. If you launch and don’t see adoption, then seed the community and assign a community manager to identify and persist with likely early adopters – past interns, local employees and internal enthusiasts. If you get 10% of the participants to start posting or sharing, start engaging the others by sending out daily digests with highlights of the community engagement. Persist with informal engagement contests/activities as it will keep the momentum going.
  3. Start from the start. Once the community is engaged, start with posting questions that would be extremely relevant to the new hire group. Questions could be about the company’s roadmap/vision, new hire benefits, career progression or new trends/technologies. You will be pleasantly surprised how the community will latch on to these. The key is to initially post topics that are current and relevant, and that are likely to spark debates and discussions.
  4. Identify and encourage early adopters; create healthy peer pressure. Early adopters are vital to the success of such initiatives. Therefore, the organization would do well to identify them quickly and encourage them. Rewarding the early adopters for legitimate contributions, can jump-start the initiative and generate healthy momentum, not to forget the much-needed peer pressure.
  5. Blend it with formal learning. Create a schedule for formal learning and integrate it. Post links to new training that have been made available. If you are bold, experienced success and willing to take it to the next level, create an achievement system using enterprise gamification wherein both formal and informal learning – social engagement with the community – is rewarded and the achievements – in terms of badges and leaderboard – is visible to the entire community.
  6. Go offline to make it sticky. Organize local meetups and allow the community to interact face to face, to further boost engagement. This is optional, and organizations can manage without this, but if done, it would make the community more sticky and drive engagement to a different level.
  7. Sustain until it self sustains. Virality and the network effect takes a while. The objective is to engage the community activities for a few weeks and more, till the community becomes self-sustaining. Many Mindtickle customers have used the Mindtickle platform for managing the communication and engagement with new hires for the entire first year. This involvement is key.

Leveraging informal learning into mainstream learning and development is still evolving. While there is recognition of its critical importance; frameworks and structures around informal learning are still being discussed, debated, and tested. Questions abound. Should it focus on the process or the outcomes? How to keep it informal in a formal manner?

Therefore, as the concept of informal learning evolves, for organizations, the key thing is to not look at informal learning as a quick fix – buy a solution or a social learning platform or hire a community manager or create brown bag events – it is about creating a culture of learning and sharing. And new hire orientation is a great place to make a start – begin from the beginning.

The 4 Pillars of Knowing “What to Sell"

The training stage of any sales onboarding program is by far the most important. This is when the new reps learn the essential knowledge that sets the stage for their success in subsequent steps in the onboarding process, and then eventually in their future selling activities.

In order for this “training” to be truly effective, it is extremely important for the company’s product or service to be projected to the new hire from the eyes of the customer – in the context of the customer’s business, industry, challenges, needs, opportunities and pain points.  Learning “What to Sell” is much more than just product training or learning how to describe the company’s solutions and services. Rather, it should prepare your reps to articulate the true value proposition behind those offerings when they get in front of a customer.

There are 4 pillars to what to sell:

  • Industry
  • Customer personas
  • Product
  • Competitive analysis

sales onboarding

These pillars support the articulation of the value proposition and stand on a firm foundation of case studies and success stories.

1. Industry knowledge: setting context from a customer perspective

Before your rep can put your product and their customer’s needs in context, they need to understand your business model and its surrounding ecosystem. This isn’t so much about specific players in the industry, but rather about how your customer sees your industry and what are the first impressions that the customers build as they research the various options available in the market.  For example, they may come across influencers in the field, industry bodies and complementary products and service providers, that will all have a role in influencing their thoughts and understanding of how they can solve their specific problem. It’s for this reason that it’s critical for your new sales reps understand your industry and how your customer perceives it.

2. Buyer personas: know your customer

The second pillar is about knowing your customer. Who are they? What are their specific problems? What do they know about how to solve their problem? What is their buying process?

In most businesses, there is more than one customer persona for each product, for example, at Mindtickle we have several different buyer personas and sub-personas as well, that cover differences between customer industries. While the Mindtickle platform may be evaluated and administrated by sales enablement and training professionals, the ultimate approval and decision makers end up sales leaders in fast-growing companies.

For each buyer persona (and sub-persona), the sales rep should understand the type of messages that resonate with them, what channels they research and purchase through, what their specific problems are, and what level of maturity in the buying process they are at. This is all valuable information that forms the basis for how your reps adjust their messaging depending on whom they are interacting with.

3. Know your product as your customer sees It

Knowing your product and its features is only part of this pillar. Your sales reps add value to your customers by not only understanding their product features but by shining a torch on how to apply them to your buyer’s specific needs and issues. They should be asking themselves how does the product solve the buyer’s problem? How often do the customers use the product and for what purpose? What will be the impact on the customer if they purchase this product (for example will it increase their revenue or save time perhaps)?

By not only understanding your product but also its context to the customer, you can make a huge difference to the buyer and also your bottom line. For example, one of our customers discovered that by training their reps not only on the features of its different product offerings but also on how each product met the needs of different customer personas, their sales reps were better equipped to sell to different customers more competently. This gave them a distinct competitive advantage and increased their sales.

For product companies, the most effective and easiest-to-implement process for sales reps to develop an appreciation of the product to have them step into the shoes of the customer and experience the product themselves. While this is not as easy and straightforward to experience for services and solution companies, observing and studying customer stories can be almost as effective.

4. Competitive analysis: understand your worth

One of our customers is one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Silicon Valley and was able to leverage its competitive advantage because it performed an extensive competitive benchmarking exercise and trained its sales reps on the competitive landscape in which it operated.

This goes further than just knowing who your competitors are and looking at how your product stacks up against your competition. Don’t just look at what features your product has that your competitors don’t, but also which customer personas value these features and the use cases and contexts in which each of those relative strengths and weaknesses manifests themselves. For example, if you’re dealing with a customer persona who values analytics and reporting, then they will specifically value knowing that you can make data-driven decision-making easier and more cost-effective for them.

Another component that your new reps should learn about the competitive environment is how to handle customer objections and feature requests. It is quite likely that many of your prospects may also reach to your competitors before making a final decision. Therefore, by understanding their offering your reps will know the context of the objections based on competitor comparisons and be able to rebut them effectively. As a general rule of thumb, about 80% of your objections will be standard and can be trained mostly online. Sales managers can then deal with skill gaps or non-standard objections during the Coaching stage of onboarding.

Bringing it all together: Articulating the core value proposition

Overarching the four pillars is the core value proposition, the promise of why your company and your offering exist. There isn’t just one value proposition for a product or service, but rather multiple tiers that are tailored to different buyer personas, addressing the issues that are relevant to them respectively. By building on the context of the overall industry, understanding the buyer’s specific needs, and how your product can serve that need, your sales rep would be best positioned to create a compelling elevator pitch. While an elevator pitch may only have limited utility, when combined with real customer stories and examples, the deep understanding of the value proposition is an essential ingredient of a compelling and persuasive sales conversation with a prospect.

Finally, bring To life what to sell through case studies and customer stories

Underpinning your pillars and value proposition are case studies and success stories that provide color and context to how to deal with issues out on the field. Observing and listening into real customer calls or demos can be a great opportunity for new reps to see those stories being played out in real action.

Maintaining a library of video recordings of how experienced reps steer customer discussions can also be really valuable as it provides an opportunity for new reps to pick up sound bites and examples that have been tried and tested. In addition, sharing a repository of referenceable customers, case studies and stories can be an invaluable resource for sales reps.

The good news is that most of these “what to sell” components can be learned almost completely online, freeing up time for sales managers to be more involved at other stages of the onboarding process where they can add more value.

Outcomes

If done right, at the end of this stage they should be able to identify and relate with the customer personas, articulate the value proposition as it applies to specific customers and handles the majority of customer objections. This can be validated through online quizzes and mock pitching exercises. By certifying your sales rep at this point, you can see what knowledge they’ve achieved and where there may be some skill gaps to work on. Of course, if they pass their What to Sell certification, you can give them their learners permit knowing they’re on their way to becoming competent and are ready to move onto learning How To Sell.

5 Tips to Reinforce Sales Training

I’m often asked by sales leaders about how to ensure that sales onboarding delivers long-lasting results. After all, you spend so much time and energy hiring and onboarding new sales reps, but like a shiny new car, your investment depreciates the minute they step outside. Trying to reinforce sales training is a challenge many enablement leaders face.

It is natural for the reps to forget the training content and even if they retained everything the readiness of your reps will decline on a relative scale because it is a moving target. Competitors change strategy, industry dynamics change, you introduce new product features or you have published new referenceable case studies.

It’s not only important to help your newbies maintain their level of knowledge by reinforcing their training, but also to sustain their overall sales readiness so they can continue to level up. Therefore, reinforcement is a critical part of an effective onboarding program.

But how should one go about creating a reinforcement plan for new reps that delivers the goods? Some of your gaps for new reps may be knowledge related, while others may be behavioral. So it’s important to use different methods of reinforcement to target specific issues. To get your reps on their way to achieving their sales quota, here are 5 best practices:

Implement periodic refreshers to reinforce sales training

Broadly, speaking there are two types of sales training formats – baseline training modules (think of them as long-form modules that provide a well-structured and comprehensive knowledge about a subject matter, and bite-sized updates to refresh the knowledge imparted in the training modules. These updates when delivered in the right context can not only serve to refresh the knowledge of your sales reps, but they can also help the sales reps connect the dots on how those pieces of information can help them win more deals. Here are a few examples:

  • Send out a cheat sheet on how to handle specific customer objections or one that outlines the steps to complete one part of the sales process
  • Send out bite-sized updates on specific product features and how they contribute to the value proposition
  • Set reminders in SalesForce at points in the process that are critical to CRM compliance
  • Send a short reminder on their mobile phone that outlines how an A Player prepares for a meeting

Some of your priorities may be knowledge related, while others may be behavioral. So it’s important to use different methods of reinforcement to target specific issues.

Spot check sales readiness

Quick pop-quizzes are a great way to periodically test and reinforce what your sales reps have retained. When combined with explanations for the quiz answers, these quizzes can serve to enhance the knowledge of the reps. This can be particularly useful for small nuggets of information that are easily forgotten.

Mindtickle has over eight different types of quizzes that can make this quite simple to implement, and provide you with data on how your reps performed on each question as well. For example, use a multiple choice question to test their knowledge of the value proposition or label matching to update them on the benefits of a new product feature.

Reinforce sales training with coaching and simulation exercises

While a structured coaching plan should already be part of your sales onboarding, you can reinforce specific skills and troubleshoot issues using mini-simulations. For example, if there is a specific objection that many reps struggle to deal with, you can have them record their response and then go over this with them in your next feedback session. And if done on a regular basis, such exercises help ensure that all sales reps have consistent messaging.

Mindtickle offers an automated workflow for managing these simulation exercises called Sales Missions. Sales managers can create online exercises for their team members which require them to submit an audio-video recording of how they would respond to a sales situation. These could range from cold pitches, elevator pitches, leaving voicemails to handling specific customer queries or objections.  These bite-sized missions should take no more than 5 minutes for the rep to do but can help provide very actionable feedback.

Mentoring

You already know your high-performing quota carriers are the best inspiration you can give to a new hire, but they can also help them reinforce the best practices they’ve heard about during their onboarding. By establishing a formal mentoring program or even an informal buddy system, your new hires can hear success stories and winning strategies directly from your rockstars. When positioned as a buddy or mentor relationship, the new hires are likely to be more open to asking questions that they perhaps might consider too “dumb” to ask their manager.

Certain sales leaders do not want to spare a minute of their top sellers for such mentoring activities. I believe that is a short-sighted approach and can be detrimental to the career progression of your “A player” sales reps. Such mentoring programs have dual benefits in the long term. Not only are they beneficial for the newbies, they also offer an opportunity to your “A” reps to get a first-hand experience of essential managerial skills such as coaching, as the first step towards graduation to senior roles.

Make it mobile

By ensuring that reinforcement content and activities are made available to the reps on their mobile devices, those interactions will be integrated into your reps daily routine and quickly become just another part of their everyday sales activities. Moreover, for reinforcement to be effective, the tips and refreshers are much more meaningful when presented in the context of customer situations. For example – the value of a case study or a win story would be most appreciated by a sales rep when presented in the middle of a similar deal that he/she may be assisting with.

Bonus tip: Amplify the impact of reinforcement by leveraging the power of analytics

According to the Aberdeen Group, 20% more sales reps achieve quota when their team implements post-training reinforcement. But before you jump straight in, you must prioritize the key capabilities that you want your reps to focus on, and then determine how best to reinforce those. For example, ensuring that they fully understand your customer personas may be a challenge for some, or many may find CRM compliance to be a pain point. This is where analytics and data can play a big role again.

At Mindtickle, we export the learning performance (scores in quizzes, engagement metrics, and results from pitch testing) in order to create groups of new hires based on their development needs. This data has also been very useful for us to create a standardized refresher track that applies to all new hires.

For example – we observed that most new hires find it hard to retain the advanced functionality of the Mindtickle analytics. Additionally, our data also tells us that the A player reps on our team have consistently shown a very high degree of awareness regarding competition. So we added competition battle-cards to the reinforcement track and additional reinforcement on advanced analytic functionality.

How to Create a Structured Coaching Program for New Sales Reps

We all know coaching is an important part of a sales manager’s role, and as a sales enablement leader, you enable them to do it more effectively. However, traditionally sales coaching more often than not ends up being a one-size-fits-all pep talk focusing on what formula worked for the manager when they were a sales rep. But to help a new sales hire the focus of coaching actually needs to be on their needs.

Using a data-driven approach to coaching, rather than relying solely on intuition, can provide your sales managers with direction on what skill gaps each individual rep need to be coached on. You can even leverage technology to make the coaching process more efficient – through video recordings and online feedback forms for example.

This can have the additional benefit of making coaching a regular and planned activity that is in the calendar without the need to sync schedules or travel in the case of distributed teams. By implementing a structured approach, your sales manager can be more effective at coaching and spend less time doing it, leaving them with more time driving sales.

When creating an effective coaching plan for your new sales reps, you need to look at it in the context of the entire onboarding process. I recommend introducing coaching after you have trained and tested the knowledge of your new hire. Sequencing it in this order has several advantages. Firstly, the new hire will get more out of your coaching sessions as they come in prepared with all their baseline knowledge, and you will spend less time explaining the basics of “what to sell” and “how to sell”. Secondly, and more importantly, sales managers can build on the data collected from the first two steps in the process to put together a customized coaching plan that will help address the specific areas that require development and reinforcement.

To coach or to give feedback

Before I get into the details of creating a structured coaching plan, it’s important to clarify exactly what coaching is. Many managers confuse coaching with giving feedback, but in reality, they are two very different things. Feedback is where a manager tells a rep what they think about their performance and what they could do differently. It’s not really about the rep at all, but rather about the sales manager’s perspective on their performance. On the other hand, coaching is all about the sales rep; what would address their gaps, how they can perform better, and strengthen their skills. Coaching is a structured and intentional process to guide your new sales rep to be sales ready so they can achieve their maximum potential. Coaching a new sales rep is a critical step in onboarding them, and when provided in a structured manner, it can accelerate the onboarding ramp significantly. Tactical feedback can then be given once they’re out in the field. For this reason, it’s important that sales managers are able to set aside time for coaching, as Jeff Hoffman correctly states:

Identifying skill gaps

Typically, after the training and certification stages of onboarding have been completed, the sales reps should understand “What to Sell” by this stage, but may be struggling with aspects of the “How to Sell”. Perhaps they need more work articulating the value proposition of the company’s offering or they may be struggling with objection handling or even competitive positioning. But each new hire may have a different Achilles heel and this is where technology can really help you. If you could record and file away voice-over presentations or videos of the reps practicing their pitches, this would be a goldmine of insights for the sales manager, helping them identify where the exact skill gaps are – for each individual.

Creating a structured sales coaching plan

Once you know what needs to be coached, you can then help the sales manager create a structured plan, with tasks and activities that have been designed to reinforce their training. This stage of the onboarding process can be completed over 4 to 6 weeks; 3 to 4 weeks of intense coaching, followed by 1 to 2 weeks of on-the-job coaching. An integral part of the process is to complement the coaching by having the newbie shadow one of your A players. Where possible, the new hire can shadow someone when they are demonstrating the specific skill sets that are being coached. This will give them the opportunity to see how it’s done in practice as

No two coaching plans will be the same. Even if two reps have passed their sales certification process they may still have different areas of weakness so their coaching plan will be different, and customized to address their individual skills and needs. However, there are four main areas where coaching is likely to be required when onboarding a sales rep: 

  1. Articulating the product value proposition
  2. Objection handling
  3. Creating the customer pitch deck
  4. Following the sales process

These areas cannot be taught solely through an online training platform, they require coaching and face-to-face time to make sure they are perfected. But before the sales manager does that, you can assign the rep different tasks or activities to complete that meet these objectives and can then be used as part of the coaching process.

For example, if they need to improve how they articulate the value proposition, then they can do some more simulation missions that include practicing, videoing themselves, and then watching back with their sales manager. The coaching can occur as they play it back together and identify areas where they can improve their articulation of the value proposition. If following the sales process is an issue, then practicing with dummy leads will help identify where behavior needs to be corrected.

To make this job easier for you, I suggest putting together some pre-designed exercises that cover each of these areas. You can then select and assign the ones that are to be included in the coaching plan for each individual rep.

Once each of the assigned tasks has been completed the sales rep should be ready for face-to-face coaching. The sales manager can use these recorded tasks and data from the assignments to give the rep structured coaching where they need it the most.

Combine this coaching with a shadowing program, where the newbies can watch your A players in action and see a realistic view of how the coached techniques are applied out in the field. This integrated approach to coaching can be very powerful and will have your newbies ready to get out there and sell quicker.

Create a Sales Coaching Program for your Reps!

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