Sales Agility 101
For leaders in sales and revenue operations, ensuring their teams possess the most recent product knowledge might just feel like an operational need – but it’s actually a strategic imperative.
Your products are changing, you’ve got multiple new products and features launching constantly, and we know how hard it can be to help your team keep up understanding it all, let alone selling it.
The challenge is substantial with the lifecycle of products often being as dynamic as the markets they serve.
When your sales force is not fully up-to-date, the ability to articulate the value of products to customers doesn’t hit the mark, ultimately affecting the bottom line.
Strategies to Keep Your Sales Teams Informed
- Hold Regular Product Training Sessions
Instituting regular product training sessions is fundamental. These sessions should not merely be a review of product features but also a forum for discussing customer feedback, competitive positioning, and successful sales tactics.
- Create Streamlined Communication Channels
With information coming from multiple sources, it is crucial to establish clear, streamlined communication channels. A central repository for product updates, FAQs, and related collateral can ensure that sales representatives have a single source of truth to refer to.
- Use Interactive Learning Tools
Leveraging interactive learning tools can increase engagement and retention of information. Quizzes, flashcards, and gamified elements can make learning about product updates more engaging for sales teams.
- Peer Learning and Knowledge Sharing
Creating an environment that encourages peer-to-peer learning can be highly effective, especially when it includes opportunities like data science courses. Sales professionals often learn best from their colleagues experiences and insights, and this can be facilitated through regular knowledge-sharing sessions, collaborative platforms, and by incorporating relevant data science courses that enhance their analytical skills and decision-making abilities.
- Establish a Continuous Feedback Loop
A feedback loop between the sales team and the product development team can help sales professionals understand customer reactions and product reception in real-time, allowing for more relevant and timely sales strategies.
Supporting Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing
To implement these strategies effectively, companies need innovative solutions to support continuous learning and knowledge transfer – day in day out, week on week.
An example of an organization that has done this really well is a marketing insights organization where their sales senior leader was overrun with onboarding new sales reps, unable to get his work done and simply being a walking FAQ.
Getting sales reps up to speed with and selling their complex product was nothing short of a nightmare not only for revenue, but also for the satisfaction of new sales reps who were chomping at the bit to get started.
Using Hive Learning’s products, their sales teams are able to access sales information on the go, at the point of need via their mobiles as well as providing a collaborative space where team members can share product knowledge gaps and difficulties with objections. As a result, new sales reps are selling 6 weeks quicker than before which has contributed to a 30% increase in company sales.
Adopting such products could lead to a sales force that is not just informed but also equipped to connect products to customer needs effectively – after all, as it currently stands 58% of buyers state that sales reps aren’t able to adequately answer their questions. This is essential for not just maintaining but also growing the client base and securing a strong market position.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the key to getting and keeping your sales team up-to-speed with product updates is to create a culture of continuous learning from the very beginning and to provide tools and processes that support real-time knowledge sharing. By doing so, sales teams can remain agile and responsive in a market where staying informed is not just beneficial, but necessary for success.
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