It’s a classic enterprise sales rep scenario. In a day packed with in-person meetings and phone calls to chase down deals, your field sales rep is tied to a table at a Starbucks between client locations. He has his laptop and 15 minutes to spare before walking into the next big meeting with a major prospect. Your rep wants to be prepared and to make the most of the meeting, which means he has to digest case studies on similar clients. He must be on top of specific industry trends and challenges, and how the product uniquely solves them. He knows this information is out there for him somewhere but doesn’t have the time to search for it. To get to that information, he must successfully navigate three questions:
1. Where does he go to find the case studies, presentations and testimonials that he needs? According to research by Docurated, 68 percent of companies have more than five file storage systems. That’s valuable time lost as your rep searches different systems for the information he needs.
2. Can he access that information and learn from it in the next 15 minutes? For many reps, ease-of-access is a priority as it can be tough – and not always safe – to connect to the network and download a large file, on a public WiFi network. With just a few minutes to spare, connecting and locating the content leaves little time to internalize it.
3. Did he find the best information? Even if the rep finds the right file system, he may not find the best information for his specific prospect. 90 percent of marketing content goes unused by sales reps.
Sales enablement executives and sales trainers may be frustrated by the fact that sales reps do not effectively use the knowledge that is shared with them. After all, they presented this information with the team at the most recent quarterly sales training meeting. But, according to Xerox, 87 percent of sales training skills are lost within a month. And if a rep does not use the knowledge within the first week, they are 81 percent less likely to remember it. So the traditional method of bringing sales teams together for in-person or large scale webinar-based sales training sessions leaves a lot of real learning on the table. Most reps will retain just a small fraction of information from these meetings, and that information is of limited use while they cram for a meeting.
Effective Enablement
The good news for sales enablement executives is that the critical knowledge and expert resources are all there. And they have the content – documents, video, quizzes or rich media presentations – to effectively empower sales reps with the knowledge they need to close deals. But sales enablement leaders need to deliver the information in a manner that supports the reality of a sales rep’s work process. The challenge is to enable this content in a way that effectively embeds it in the minds of the recipients. What, you may ask, is content enablement? It is the intersection of content storage, secure distribution for all content types, interactive tools, and analytics to deliver business results.
Sales enablement content must now be:
Delivered just in time to help reps on the go.“Just-in-time” means that reps have the most accurate information at the exact moment they need it. Reps are more likely to work from out-of-date information when companies allow them to save downloaded PDFs, PowerPoints and other materials on their own devices. But just-in-time content is managed by the sales enablement team, who is responsible to keeping it up-to-date. Just-in-time training works best with the use of newer and more effective educational tools like videos, quizzes and testimonials. That means reps are better prepared and more knowledgeable in meetings and can more quickly move prospects through the sales funnel.
Provide situational relevance to increase usefulness. Situation-based learning content gives reps the information they need to close their next deal. Nothing resonates better – especially for sales reps – than hearing a tale of success from a peer. That real-life, in-the-meeting experience, and how it drove a sale, is now easily captured and shared via video. These quick win reviews are staples of traditional in-person sales training meetings, but by making them available online, in a secure manner, reps can listen and learn from each other on a daily basis.
Be personalized to the sales rep’s level of training. Personalized sales training content accounts for the individual rep’s expertise, preferred learning style and the technology capabilities available to him at that moment. Sales enablement works when the reps can easily access specific information they need and apply it in the same day. That means giving reps access to content on any device and in a variety of formats – be it video, documents, podcast or presentation.
Just-in-time, situational and personalized training supported by a unified content enablement platform removes a big frustration from sales meeting prep. It empowers the reps with the knowledge they need to have more productive meetings, which lead to larger deal sizes and more engaged and knowledgeable buyers.
While it is true a Venti latte from Starbucks will give a sales rep an energy boost heading into a meeting, just-in-time, situational and personalized content-based training will give that sales rep the confidence boost needed to make the meeting a real success.
Joe Moriarty is CEO of Content Raven, providers of a unified content enablement platform that enables the distribution of company-produced and highly specific product, customer and strategy information in a secure manner to sales reps anywhere in the world. Contact Joe at info@contentraven.com.
