Does it seem like your sales team lacks motivation or engagement? But are you sure you’re maximizing their potential and skills? The absence of any professional challenge can have a lasting impact on your employees’ productivity and sales performance.
But what about the new talent you recruit within your sales organization? Their integration must allow them to familiarize themselves with company processes, while adapting in real-time to the incessant changes of a market undergoing digital acceleration. The sales manager plays a key role in this integration, as they must ensure the delicate balance between increasingly informed customers, complex and sophisticated offers combining products and services, and employees who need to be motivated and engaged long-term.
In a market where product and service offerings, as well as technology, are constantly evolving, the sales manager must be creative to engage and advance their sales force —without having to resort to costly, sometimes poorly targeted or unreliable training sessions. In reality, the solution comes down to a few words: information segmentation, distribution over short periods, and delivery via a digital platform. Micro-training (or micro-learning) is as simple as that!
1. Cultivate a Pedagogical Mindset
Micro-learning differs significantly from traditional training sessions. A digital learning platform allows for the use of various media, such as text, images, or video, as well as different formats. These educational resources are constantly available and accessible from a digital library, which your sales force can consult freely. Finally, a micro-learning module generally includes an evaluation, which can, for example, take the form of a quiz. The evaluation process for your employees is thus simplified and accelerated: the module provides instant and easily actionable feedback for the employee. In summary, micro-learning is conceived as a non-restrictive learning method, ideal for familiarizing your sales force with a specific offer, the launch of a new product, or a complex sales campaign.
2. Adopt an Agile Learning Approach
Micro-learning modules allow for information segmentation before making it accessible to learners. By offering short, well-structured learning sessions to your employees, you will save valuable time while reducing your sales organization’s training costs. The configuration and implementation of a micro-learning platform are both quick and easy to implement. According to Ray Jimenez, an e-learning platform “architect,” micro-learning systems can be launched three times faster than traditional learning methods. The development and distribution phases, for example via your employees’ smartphones, are indeed much shorter; only the design of the learning modules or lessons remains.
Micro-learning will therefore allow you to gain speed and agility during deployment, so you can focus on what matters: the content of the training modules and their continuous adaptation, according to market developments and customer or prospect behavior. Duolingo, a micro-learning platform specializing in language learning, has thus attracted over 120 million users by offering them “a private tutoring experience through technology.” A study conducted by the platform itself then showed that the micro-learning method allowed for up to 75% faster learning.
3. Learn Continuously and Remotely
The third advantage of micro-learning is directly linked to the digital platform necessarily associated with it: the latter indeed allows for continuous learning. Indeed, nowadays, uninterrupted training for sales forces represents a significant opportunity for sales organizations, as it allows for progressive and continuous improvement of skills —and thus performance. In some cases, the integration of a micro-learning platform can become a major key success factor, especially when training covers topics that are both essential and innovative. It can also play a key role in the integration of newly recruited sales representatives, without them feeling overwhelmed by the sum of knowledge and skills to acquire —2 to 3 minutes of learning per day are sufficient.
4. Foster a Sense of Accomplishment
Who doesn’t love the feeling of accomplishment after winning a challenge —especially brilliantly? Micro-learning allows this feeling to be instilled every day within your sales team —whether after completing a 3-minute lesson, correctly filling out a quiz, or simply after becoming aware of essential information. This method thus allows for small victories every day, and thereby to foster motivation and engagement within your organization.
5. Leverage Sensory Learning
Yes, you read that right! Some of our senses allow for “short-term” learning; this is particularly true for visual memory, as our visual sense is constantly stimulated by numerous images. What if you replaced the traditional (and painful) reading of reports and data with watching and analyzing a short video, followed by a discussion among colleagues? They will thus be able to leverage their other senses during learning, so as to go beyond simple visual (and short-term) memorization to retain up to 17% more information.
6. Improve Progress Tracking
Many learning systems provide users with data on progress made. The administrator of a micro-learning platform can also track each employee’s learning journey by accessing their results or evaluations. One of Incenteev’s features allows for the customization of user dashboards, which integrate data from each system (sales CRM, ERP, learning system) onto a single platform, in real-time. These customizable dashboards thus allow you to identify your sales KPIs, track your employees’ progress (individually and collectively), while more effectively targeting areas for potential improvement.
7. You Can Certainly Afford It
According to a study conducted by Training Industry, Inc. in 2016, 71% of the 235 companies surveyed agreed that the use of a micro-learning platform by sales organizations led to cost reduction. Indeed, integrating such a system does not require the intervention of a trainer or consultant, which can reduce training costs by 50% to 70% —not to mention the time saved. Furthermore, adopting such a learning method does not involve acquiring or renting new training premises, nor printing costs, as it relies entirely on a digital platform.
8. Double Your Sales Representatives’ Engagement
According to a study by Software Advice, micro-learning modules significantly improve employee engagement —and are up to 50% more effective than traditional learning formats in terms of motivation. 58% of employees surveyed admitted they would be more inclined to use online training tools provided to them if information was fragmented into several short lessons. This study also revealed that longer, traditional courses were more difficult to assimilate and retain, especially when integrated into an already busy workday. Micro-learning has therefore developed in parallel with a growing disinterest from both sales representatives and their managers in traditional learning formats, such as seminars and conferences.
9. Better Reward Your Sales Force
According to the same Software Advice study, 35% of employees surveyed reported that real rewards distributed
based on online progress would be the primary incentive for using a learning platform. One of Incenteev’s features will also allow you to organize sales challenges to inspire and motivate your sales force in a fun and engaging way. By receiving your team’s results and data from your CRM in real-time, you will be able to track individual and collective progress and reward them more fairly.
How to Implement a Micro-learning Method?
If we have successfully convinced you of the benefits and effectiveness of micro-learning, you will certainly want to discover the tools you can use to improve your team’s engagement and performance. Indeed, the functionalities of a simple CRM are not enough, as they merely report statistical and analytical data. While this information allows you to identify drivers of sales performance, it will not help you foster motivation or the progress of your sales force.
Your employees’ smartphones have become an indispensable professional tool. The ability to freely access micro-learning modules will make it even more indispensable: this way, your sales representatives can progress at their own pace, while ensuring they properly follow the steps of each lesson. Such a digital platform will also allow you to create personalized training modules, based on your sales objectives and your employees’ specific needs.
