How to Think About Doling Out Training

<3 minutes read

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Introduction

More and more, the online services we use are becoming tailored to our interests. Websites like YouTube constantly recommend more and more content in hopes of keeping you on the site, consuming as much content as possible.  A lot of businesses have their training platform set up like YouTube, providing them with every single piece of content about every single topic. Throw it all at them, and something is bound to stick, right?

What if, instead of distracting reps with a mountain of content at once, you only gave them exactly what they needed to get to the next step in their career? What if you tailored your training process to give your reps content that is constantly moving them forward? How much more productive would your reps be when they can feel you empowering them at every step of the way? How does all of this play out?

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What They Don’t Know, They Don’t Know.

A lead dev helping a co-workerWhen new reps enter into the onboarding process, they have no idea just what it is that they don’t know. They don’t know what they should be learning. They need the appropriate training prescribed to them. This sounds obvious, but the principle is powerful - early on, you are in full control of your reps' knowledge. You don't have to overwhelm them with tons of on-demand training content right away. You can guide them through the first steps of getting to know your company, the industry, and the expectations.

Once the rep has gotten their feet wet and becomes familiar with the role, they’ll be aware of the gaps in their knowledge. At this point, you can provide access to an on-demand folder of lessons that have job and product-specific information that they will need once they are out in the field. What’s important is, they don’t need all of this information all at once, especially if they aren’t even out selling yet. A guided experience like this keeps your reps from feeling overwhelmed and distracted early on and will give them a sense of momentum as th establish a place in your company.


There Are All Types of Reps

Group of reps laughing together at work As in any role, there are all types of reps and their preferences for training are going to vary. Some reps come into a role highly objective-based. They care about the end result and want to know exactly what is needed to get there. Too much information all at once will make them less confident because it makes their objective feel further away, unachievable. Other reps take more of an “educator” approach to their role, where their confidence comes from teaching the customer and showing them their comprehensive product and business expertise.

The good news is, this process will help in both cases. The driver-type reps who want to get out, do the job, and figure their way through it will appreciate the sense of forward momentum they get from their training. Alternately, the ones who prefer to be comprehensive will have access to all the information they need at exactly the right time.


Conclusion

One of our missions at ConveYour is to challenge businesses to rethink how they train their reps. The traditional approach to training comes with the risk of overwhelming or boring reps with too much information at the beginning, sending them into the field without building their confidence. We believe that there is a better way to get this done. All you have to do is listen and be receptive to the needs of your reps and, of course, map the journey.

We developed ConveYour to take your training to the next level. With our Campaigns and Automations features, we want to provide a simple solution to providing exquisite, timely, and relevant training to members of your team exactly when they need it.

Interested in learning more? Click here to book a demo.


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The content from this article was derived from Stephen Rhyne's video, How to Think About Doling Out Training, from the Quick Reps video series. It was compiled and re-worded by Andrew Baldis.