Redefining Sales Training
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There's a powerful trinity at the heart of every successful training program: instruction, practice, and feedback. To illustrate this, let's take an example from a domain that has nothing to do with sales: my recent gym class. We were taught how to maintain a specific rotations per minute (RPM) on different exercise machines, and then practiced what we learned. During the class, some people were seasoned pros, others novices. Regardless, we all got personalised, real-time feedback from our coach, and a performance graph at the end to see our progress, heart rate range, and calories burned.
Now, compare this to traditional sales training.
As a sales rep, you're usually armed with a trove of sales enablement materials such as documents, videos, etc. But there's a catch. The business world is a whirlwind of constant change. New products and features keep rolling out. You might start selling to small customers, only to graduate to more enterprise deals later. In short, the instructions you start with can quickly become outdated.
To practice sales calls, you must, well, make sales calls. It's as simple, and as complex, as that. Shadowing a call or listening back to someone else's doesn't compare. You wouldn't expect to burn calories by watching someone else work out, right? The problem is that your sales reps, particularly the newer ones, burn through potential leads while they're still honing their skills. And there's a finite number of leads to generate; you can't accelerate learning without risking potential clients.
Last, but not least, in the feedback department, sales reps usually depend on their managers to review their calls. This can eat up a lot of the manager's time, and that's if they manage to get around to it at all. The feedback loop here often becomes protracted, and meanwhile, mistakes can creep into follow-up calls. Worse still, there's no clear idea of what "good" looks like across sales teams.
This is where Solidroad comes in, born out of the simple question asked by myself and co-founder Patrick: "Imagine a personalised sales coach in your pocket?"
As we break down the anatomy of training into instruction, practice, and feedback, here's how Solidroad fits in:
- Instruction: Solidroad automatically generates sales content from previous sales conversations. No longer do sales reps have to rely on product marketing teams to update collateral.
- Practice: With Solidroad, reps can practice realistic sales scenarios with an AI prospect or customer. There's no more worrying about burning sales leads due to lack of experience or having insufficient leads for practice.
- Feedback: Solidroad provides a score and real-time feedback post-call. This way, reps don't have to wait for their manager's review during the next 1x1 (if the call is reviewed at all).
At the heart of Solidroad is the belief that sales training doesn't need to be stagnant. By leveraging generative AI, we can provide up-to-date instructions, safe spaces for practice, and immediate, personalised feedback.
Our mission is to help people who work hard to reach their full potential. Our vision is to transform global workplace training.
Step one is to put a customised sales coach in every rep's pocket, revolutionising the way sales training is carried out. By focusing on the core tenets of instruction, practice, and feedback, we believe we can help sales teams become more effective, efficient, and successful.
