I have very vivid memories of an outbound management training program I’d attended 10 years back that kind of revolutionized the way I think about training. For those new to this kind of concept of outbound training, here’s wiki’s definition – “Outbound Management Programs are a training method for enhancing organizational performance through experiential learning. Such programs are often also referred to as corporate adventure training and outdoor management development.”

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Effective learning of any kind—whether at school or the corporate level—requires an individual’s passion and zeal to learn. It is imperative to understand the importance of learning. Most of the time, people learn the things in life after finishing school or college, or what we call professional education.

Today, most learning is by personal experiences rather than the bookish knowledge we gain. It’s important to understand that what we learn today may not hold value 10 years down the line. Experiential learning is what holds the maximum importance these days. Learning at the corporate level has multiple reasons and chief among them are:

• One may learn or upgrade his or her skills for increasing his or her competence at the workplace.
• Increase in career prospects.
• An employee can undergo training to feel at par with colleagues in terms of education and experience.
• Learning may happen to due to lack of job satisfaction.
• Learning can also help the individual in discovering new areas of expertise.

There are many more reasons why an individual wants to learn something new. Notwithstanding, there are barriers to the learning process. Some of these key barriers to effective learning are:

• Many consider learning as just another task and not as an experience to know more and be knowledgeable.
• Many times, individuals miss the opportunity to learn more without realizing it.
• Not recognizing the importance of learning and not knowing how to use the knowledge gained is in itself a barrier to learning.

Starting from the junior most employee of an organization to the top most manager or CEO, each person needs to be responsible about his or her learning which would eventually lead to the growth of the Company. Every individual must identify learning opportunities made available to him or her and utilize them effectively to move ahead in life.

No matter which industry vertical one is in, effective learning is extremely important in every Company. To ensure that your Company’s employees are continuously developing and in the process of constant training, effective learning techniques must be incorporated.

Do share your thoughts on the same.

Sales Training can comprise product knowledge, sales procedures & reports and selling skills.

We have been developing sales training courses for automobile major in Europe, with market presence in Europe and Asia. During the development, we realized that this client company is using a blended approach by addressing certain aspects of training via online delivery and certain others in the classroom.

For example, the procedures and reports that need to be followed and filled in respectively are quite amenable to be put online. So the company went ahead and asked us to develop a 60-minute online course to teach their sales people various procedures to be followed which included the sales planning process. The course presented adequate opportunities for the learners to test their understanding.

Products in this case were automobile spare parts; there was nothing much to be learnt about them as they fell in some kind of consumable category. Had the product been an automobile itself, product training could have been attempted through eLearning, with ample use of 3-D animations and voice over.

Coming to the controversial component – selling skills. Can it be done effectively via an online course? As a former sales person and also a training professional, I classify learning how to sell under experiential learning – learning by doing. Usually, selling skills training is either done on-the-job (OJT) along with a senior sales person for providing guidance and feedback or in a classroom where typical sales situations are simulated for the learners to enact the role of a sales person while another learner takes on the role of a buyer. Feedback is generally given in the form of a video shoot of the process.

Given this kind of training, I think eLearning or online mode of delivery is not very suitable for selling skills training.

What do you think? Thank you for reading my blog and I welcome your comments and sharing of experiences.

RK Prasad

CEO

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