Top Tips to Increase Sales and Retention

Helping employees improve their skills is the best way to increase your sales performance and keep you employees happy. Salespeople who are enjoying significant success and earning a substantial commission won't scroll LinkedIn looking for new opportunities.

Google searches for “How to Improve Sales Team performance” will bring up a lot of options. There are many ideas, from increasing the frequency of one on one meetings to hiring an outside coach or hosting sales retreats.

Let's now look at another option: investing in customized sales training courses that will improve engagement, retention, and retention of employees.

Let's first discuss the benefits of custom courses for increasing sales and employee retention.

Why not invest in sales training custom designed for you?

Technically, this is just another idea that we are presenting to you: creating custom e-learning programs for your sales team. We are confident in this idea, however, because there are many compelling reasons to invest into custom courses for your team. These custom courses:

• Tailored to your needs. Sales trainers don't need to know everything about your product or service. They need to be able and willing to share their knowledge with others. It is possible to create customized courses that can be tailored for your company and different sales teams.
• Less boring for salespeople. Courses can be more engaging and relevant with animations, simulations and scenarios. Using drag-and-drop and other interactive elements to make courses more exciting. It is a common misconception that corporate training courses should be the same as the suits and ties employees wear to work every day. It's simply not true!
• Easily updated over time. You can make minor adjustments to your sales process or adopt a new tagline for your marketing campaign. This is especially true when you have a content partner who provides the source files for you to make any changes you need.
• More flexible for busy learners. Learners are able to complete courses when they have the time, rather than trying to squeeze in too much into a tight schedule. A sales team is a great example of “time is money”.
• Continuous training. This is not unusual. As learners can revisit them as often as they need, custom courses offer a permanent solution.
• Smart financial investment. Custom courses are more expensive upfront, but they can be more valuable over time. Take a look at the graphic below to understand what we mean.

These benefits can all lead to increased sales. However, there is one caveat: custom-made sales training courses will only provide the best results.

Let's look at elements that you can include in your e-learning strategy for creating courses that work.

E-Learning Development Tips for Increasing Sales

These tips will help you create sales training courses that increase sales, close deals, product sales, services rendered and subscriptions signed.

• Start by looking at existing content. You will need to review existing content and interview trainers and top salespeople. Based on the top salespeople's opinions, determine what to keep and what to delete.
• Establish goals and link them to key performance indicators (KPIs). Think about what salespeople should do differently after they complete your course. What impact do you expect that improvement to have on your bottom line? You don't want salespeople to be better at negotiating prices. You can say, “I want salespeople improve their price negotiation skills, and as a consequence, increase their average contract size by 10%.”
• Encourage salespeople to develop soft skills. Consider the most successful members of your sales team. They are likely to be friendly and efficient. This is not something you can learn by watching a presentation or reading a book. It only takes practice. To immerse students in your courses, create realistic scenarios and simulate them. Instead of reading about contract negotiation, learners can simulate negotiating with prospects.

Your courses should be focused on the skills that are most useful to salespeople, such as research techniques, conversation skills and other tools necessary to close deals. Your salespeople will need to practice these skills repeatedly before they can go into their next prospect meeting.

E-Learning Development Tips for Increasing Retention

You've now trained an outstanding team of salespeople. You want them to take their new skills to the next company that offers a better salary, better benefits, or work-from-home exclusivity. It's more than just giving them more money.

They invest in their education and become high-performing employees. The ability to communicate and close sales is not something that was born. They are always looking for ways to improve. You should design your e-learning programs with retention in mind to retain top-performing salespeople.

These are some tips to help you retain your e-learning course.

• Allow employees to explore topics of interest to them. Consider creating microlearning courses that go beyond the topics your courses cover. The microcourse will allow employees who are interested to learn more about the information.
• Flexibility is a key component of your programming. Learners should be able to work on their own schedules, whether they are working during demo calls or in the evenings. Also, employees should be able to access courses after they have completed them. This way, employees can go back to the course if they need it later.

Overachieving salespeople will be able to access training whenever and wherever they wish. They will continue to see increased success in your company and won’t have to look elsewhere for fulfillment in their career.

Custom e-learning courses are a great way to increase your bottom line and to keep top sellers happy. This is only possible if you create courses that benefit your team.

These tips will get you off to a great beginning. You're welcome!

Amy Morrisey, the President of Artisan E-Learning, serves as Sales and Marketing Manager. Amy began her career with Artisan in the role of instructional designer/contract writer. For four years, she was our Production Manager and enabled us to double our team's capacity. She is focused on maintaining the high standards that clients have come to expect from her as President. It is important to stay close to clients, people, and work. Her favorite thing about e-learning is to work with clients to create storyboards that are creative and practical. Amy worked for 17 years in corporate training, development, primarily teaching leadership development and coaching executives and teams. ATD Detroit currently has her on its board.