Instructor-led Mobile Training for Your Sales Force

Instructor-led training is one of the most widely used modality of sales force training
and development. Pressure to increase the sales revenues and align the sales activity
with the organization’s objectives are driving the organizations to put more emphasis
on and invest more resources in training the sales force to develop their skills in
prospecting, lead management, closing the deals and creating more meaningful sales
conversations.

As you can see, this emphasis on the need to develop skills is rep-oriented rather than
organization-oriented. This is where world-class sales organizations find instructor-led
mobile training to be of great value. Using mobile devices to teach and communicate
is more personal than most other forms of sales training such as seminars and videos.
There is also a high level of interactivity associated with instructor-led mobile
training.

Further, mobile devices are also helpful in delivery performance support. Be it making
a phone call to a customer while driving or sending your latest presentation to a client
meeting via Blackberry, mobile devices can be valuable in teaching through
communication. This white paper outlines some of the advantages and disadvantages
of employing instructor-led mobile learning in training sales force.

Advantages of Mobile Learning as a Learning Platform and Performance

Support System

Organizations use two different strategies to harness the power of mobile devices as
an aid to their sales teams. The first approach uses mobile devices as an aid to sales
teams on the job. The quality of the aid varies greatly with the type of device used.
One obvious use of mobile devices as an aid is to receive and send latest information,
critical time-sensitive alerts and information delivery through text, visuals, graphics
and audio for supporting on-the-job performance.

On the other hand, the second strategy takes mobile communication to a different
level and uses it as a learning platform. To put it from the perspective of constructivist
school of learning, mobile learning serves as a communication platform between the
user and instructor to discuss and construct newer levels of knowledge in a very
authentic and realistic context, such as real-world sales environment.

Mobile learning is a great performance support system. It integrates the learner (sales
rep) with the instructor (sales manager or coach) by allowing them to send and receive
guidance, instructions, information and wisdom no matter where each participant is
present. The sales rep can be on the field and be still in touch with the manager to
fine-tune and customize their latest offering to fit the needs of the client.
Mobile communication takes sales training and performance support to the place
where real action happens. Think of how a repair person or after-sales support rep can
access diagrams, device compatibility issues, job aids, documentation and other
details from the support center or sales manager with a hand-held mobile device.

Service engineers at customer site can access experts and senior managers. Some
modern PDAs (personal Digital Assistants) also let you know which of the experts are
available on which platform (e.g. phone, email, instant message, etc) to access
expertise and learn.

Mobile training lets the sales force to immediately apply the learned content and
skills. In environments where dozens of new products get launched frequently (e.g.
retail outlets and shopping malls), it is more economical and prudent to use mobile
devices to train the sales force about new product launches than taking all the sales
reps to a centralized location for training.

Such a mobile training also relieves the pressure off from the trainers to plan the
training programs weeks in advance to the actual product launch. By having sales reps
learn about the products as and when products become available, organizations not
only save time and energy but also simplify some of the sales training functions.

Mobile learning can further be used to provide critical sales information such as
product comparison, warranty information, sales scripts and cleverly crafted answers
to frequently asked questions by customers. Now, sales reps can easily access the
information they need as and when they want instead of memorizing it.

The ability of the mobile learning to transmit and receive a large repertoire of media
such as audio, video, images, photographs, and documents enrich the learning
experience by making instruction manuals, reference content and other job aids more
engaging and entertaining.

Mobile platforms also help in creating communities of practice. Communities of

practice are informal groups or networks of people to exchange tips, solutions and best
practices. By identifying the most active employees among your sales force, you can
create small communities of practice where the sales reps can be in touch with each
other to exchange information.

Mobile learning can also help you connect and sync training to the organization’s
back-end systems. For example, if the certification of a sales representative is due to
end in four months, then the mobile system can be made to check and sync the sales
rep’s current training level with the records available in the database. It can give prior
notice to the concerned sales rep to update his or her knowledge and skills with the
latest certification program or training standards before the expiry date.
Limitations of Mobile Learning in Sales Force Training

Various technical and educational challenges impose some limitations on the

effectiveness of instructor-led mobile learning in sales force training. As the
technology matures, some of these limitations may go away and future may offer a
more effective mobile learning platform.

Mobile learning can be a fragmented and distracted learning experience. Various

psychological learning theories point out that when learners have a better
understanding how they are learning, they would be better able to assess and manage
their learning. However, mobile learning does not provide much control to the learners
over the delivery mechanism and the soundness of instructional strategy behind what
is being communicated.

Mobile learning can be ineffective if the learners lack the ability to self-assess and
self-monitor. Sales representatives who lie on the bottom of the skill levels may still
need in-person training from the coaches and sales managers. The rep’s poor ability to
judge how well he or she assimilated the new content may pose challenges to the
effectiveness of mobile learning as a sales force training platform.

Using instructor-led mobile learning platform also imposes high initial costs on the
organization. Buying devices, paying for wireless data traffic, repairs and upgrades of
hardware, and need for continuous support from IT people are some of the hurdles in
employing mobile learning on an enterprise-wide basis.

Technological limitations such as smaller screens of the mobile devices, slower speeds
of internet access, difficulty in transmitting and receiving large amounts of data, lack
of ease of navigation and complexity of using the devices also pose certain limitations
in using mobile learning.

Safety and security of the integrity of data being transmitted can be a concern to firms
that value IP rights and trade secrets. Data vulnerability and likelihood of devices
being lost or stolen also pose significant security risks to the organizations.

Conclusion

Despite its limitations and technical challenges instructor-led mobile training is

finding wide acceptance in large corporations. A survey by Aberdeen in August 20091
reveals that instructor-led training is the most widely used modality of sales force
training by best-in-class organizations and mobile learning happens to be an important
component of that training. Utilizing mobile learning is also largely dependent on the
nature of the business and importance of information flow to your operations.
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http://research.aberdeen.com/index.php/Instructor-Led Mobile Learning/860-sales-training-instructor-led-
options-for-best-in-class-performance.htm