Leveraging Technology for Improved Sales Performance

An ROI-Focused Blended Solution for Sales Training
By utilizing a blended approach rather than an all-out e-learning system or singular event-based training, companies can keep costs down and select the lowest-cost media to solve particular problems. Making decisions on the right blend requires quality assessments that answer questions about the audience, resources, timing, scale, content and particular business applications. Several ingredients are typical of a blended learning solution:

• CD-ROM software training (CBT)
• Live seminar instruction
• Web-based courseware (WBT)
• Live or on-demand webinars
• Conference calls
• Simulations
• Portals, message boards and Web communities
• Mentoring
• EPSS (electronic performance support systems)

The sales training marketplace is seeking a measurable blended learning solution that corresponds to a sales team's ability to secure targeted C-level business appointments. Throughout the country, sales professionals face a degree of difficulty setting new appointments with business titles that have the fiscal authority to make a decision in line with their product or service. Sales leadership agrees that if you understand how many new appointments are required based on your personal performance numbers and you have a best-practice learning system to teach people how to execute that critical competency effectively, you will save valuable time and get more results consistently. That being said, most companies do not have an effective system in place that can be implemented universally and adapted over time to maintain a measurable training result and ROI.