Now that the holiday season has begun, we’ve been thinking about all the things we don’t want to take for granted this year: family, friends, and – of course – sales training.  Every day, we get to see the real impact that sales training can have on businesses of all sizes, from improving sales team collaboration to increasing the number and value of sales leads.

With that, here are the top five reasons why we are thankful for sales training this year:

1.  It boosts sales. According to one Blackboard Learn for Salesforce user, sales reps who successfully complete 100% of their assigned training are outperforming those who don’t by an average of 12%.With customizable learning plans, you can measure where individual reps are succeeding and where they need more help so they can get the greatest ROI from their training time.

2.  It develops leaders. One of the most underrated benefits of sales training is its ability to foster leadership among younger employees. Especially when sales training is done on a continual basis, instead of “one-off” training sessions, you can develop high-potential performers as they encounter real-world business problems every day.

I have worked closely with ShoreTel Sky, the leader in unified communications, and have witnessed firsthand the innovative techniques they’ve adopted to improve learning and training throughout their company. From encouraging employees to learn to play an instrument through the School of Rock to offering classes on Jujitsu, they’ve created a flexible environment where employees are eager to learn and become more entrepreneurial in their daily work.

This year, ShoreTel Sky launched Blackboard Learn for Salesforce to effectively connect and measure learning and development programs within Salesforce CRM as an alternative to old-fashioned training with PowerPoint and conference calls.  I encourage you to watch the video below to learn more about ShoreTel Sky’s success and their professional development strategy, as it’s critical to their growth.

How quickly can you tell if a new hire is “getting it” before you need to take action? Should you trust a rookie sales exec with your most important customer? What key indicators are you using to determine early training success?

In our upcoming webinar, you can join Jim Ninivaggi, Service Director, SiriusDecisions, as he provides insights on how organizations are adopting innovative approaches to strategically support new hires and to deliver superior results.  Blackboard will also present best practices for training implementation and ROI measurement.

By participating in this webinar, you will:

• Find out what’s changed in on-boarding and how to improve productivity
• Learn how companies are using various productivity metrics
• Hear about best practices in virtual learning and utilizing social platforms

Interested in learning more about leveraging best practices in onboarding at your organization? Here are the details for our upcoming “Onboarding Best Practices: Ramp Up, Report Out” webinar:

Who: For sales executives/management, learning and development management, and human resources leaders.

What: A live, interactive webinar hosted by Blackboard.

When: Thursday, November 29, 2012 1:00 p.m. EST

Register: http://bit.ly/XJAwr0

Though some of the greatest opportunities for today’s sales teams can be found on the social web, there is no “one size fits all” strategy for social sales.  For example, there are some unique characteristics of business-to-business (B2B) sales that have an impact on social marketing:  B2B sales involve multiple stakeholders, typically involve longer-term relationships between the buyer and seller, and oftentimes exhibit stronger brand loyalty than consumer markets.

As a result of these and other distinct characteristics of B2B sales, I recommend the following best practices for sales teams engaged in B2B marketing:

1. Don’t separate social marketing from “real” marketing. I believe we will soon reach a point where “sales” is synonymous with “social sales.” In most industries, it is already critical for sales reps to have at least some online presence, and potential clients are increasingly likely to search for their vendors’ information on the social web.  With this in mind, it is a mistake for marketers to think that they can only spend a few minutes online each day before returning to “real” sales – social selling is should be tightly integrated into the daily sales strategy.

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Dana Aldis, LivingSocial’s, Director of Sales Training and Development, to discuss how her company uses Blackboard’s Salesforce integration throughout the sales training process. If you’re not familiar with LivingSocial, it is the local marketplace to buy and share the best things in your city (and their headquarters is just across the street from Blackboard’s here in D.C.!).  Since LivingSocial relies heavily on developing relationships with small businesses to create unique offers for its members, having an informed, agile sales force is critical to the company’s success.

 

Q: Why did you decide to incorporate your training programs within Salesforce?

Aldis: Salesforce is one of the main ways we communicate with our sales team, so having this integration is key. Through Blackboard’s integration with Salesforce, for example, our users can access training directly from Salesforce so training courses are easy to access and are more directly aligned with company goals. The powerful reporting tools have also been a huge asset allowing us to see what training is most useful to individual sales reps while analyzing the relationship between a rep’s training and performance metrics.