An LMS Can Help Your Organization Solve Its Sales Problem

A Learning Management System (LMS) offers an excellent solution for companies seeking to optimize their learning and development initiatives for sales representatives. An LMS offers your sales representatives the benefits of flexibility, microlearning, video coaching and a mobile-friendly platform. The advantages of online sales training are impressive because they each respond to a particular challenge associated with training sales representatives.

The Importance of Ongoing Learning and Development

Sales representatives must constantly stay on top of the latest product developments, cost fluctuations, and sales closing techniques to maintain a competitive edge in their markets. The best way to ensure that sales representatives remain well-versed in industry trends and sales tactics is to provide ongoing learning and development opportunities. Most important, these training and development opportunities should be interesting, useful and convenient for busy sales representatives.

Key Challenges Facing Sales Trainers

Before diving into the many ways that an LMS can solve your sales problem, it is helpful to note the primary challenges facing sales managers who are responsible for training a dispersed sales team. Below is a summary of the top problems facing company owners and sales trainers: 

• Sales representatives often prefer to use different devices to learn material
• Gathering an entire sales team for live training is virtually impossible
• Salespeople often become bored during a lengthy training or education seminar
• Training binders and speakers are often ineffective with salespeople, who are often visual learners
• Training and learning material quickly becomes outdated as new products become available to the market

How an LMS Can Be Your Sales Solution

Below is a look at five ways that an LMS can help you approach these problems and enhance the performance of your sales representatives. The result will be increased productivity and profitability for your company. 1) With an LMS, sales representatives can learn using their favorite devices. LMS software is designed with convenience and flexibility in mind. With an LMS, sales representatives can engage in learning and development at their own pace using their preferred device. The mobile-friendly design of an LMS allows sales representatives to learn new material with their tablet, smartphone or personal computer, or a combination of devices. 2) Through flexibility, an LMS eliminates the need for all members of a team to meet at once. In the past, sales training would often be a mandatory day-long event held at a hotel or conference room. Sales representatives would receive a binder containing training modules and a sales trainer, or facilitator would lead the training seminar. The disadvantages to this outdated model include the following: 

• Lost productivity and sales due to the entire sales force being in training
• No plan for sales representatives who miss the training due to illness or a conflict
• Costs associated with transportation and a training location

An LMS eliminates all of these disadvantages because sales representatives can engage in learning and training at any time and from any location. Companies save money because there is no need to reserve a training room. And most important, profits and productivity are not sacrificed because sales training and learning occur at different points in time for each salesperson. 3) Through video coaching, an LMS will draw the attention of visual learners. Like most people, sales representatives tend to be visual learners. Sifting through module after module in a training binder can contribute to a lack of interest in important material among sales representatives. By incorporating video coaching into an LMS, online learning offers a more interesting way for sales representatives to learn about new sales techniques and closing strategies. 4) With microlearning, an LMS helps prevent salespeople from becoming bored during training. Microlearning is the answer for sales trainers who notice that representatives have a tendency to become less and less interested in the material during lengthy training sessions. Through microlearning, sales representatives can learn content in smaller segments that are delivered quickly through an LMS. Below are three key advantages of microlearning: 

• The concise “knowledge nuggets” are perfect for salespeople on the go
• Microlearning is ideal for reps with short attention spans
• Sales representatives can exercise some control over the learning process

Most important, the quick content delivery style of microlearning enables sales representatives to learn chunks of key content and material quickly so they can hit the ground running faster. 5)An LMS is easy to update as new products and sales software are added. Product updates, improvements and pricing adjustments are necessary for companies to remain competitive. One of the key problems with traditional learning materials is their failure to reflect product updates and costs as quickly as new products and pricing changes are introduced. The process of updating sales training binders is tedious and requires a printer, paper, and staff to replace outdated materials. An LMS can be updated online at any point in time and from any location. Sales representatives can view updated training curriculum in real time from their computer or mobile device. No longer do sales representatives have to be trained using outdated material or wait for updated materials to be placed in a training binder.

Selecting an LMS to Optimize Results for Your Company

The best way to optimize training effectiveness for your sales force is to seek the guidance of an e-Learning solutions expert. The e-Learning experts with Knowledge Anywhere have nearly two decades of experience helping sales representatives prosper with LMS software. Please contact us to find out how our online training and e-Learning programs can help your sales representatives promote your brand more effectively. We look forward to working with you!