Product training is one of the most important objectives of sales training. It is important because it equips the sales staff with adequate product knowledge that enables them to handle customer queries objectively and convincingly. A company can have a great product to offer, but if the sales people are not trained to market the same to prospects it may not obtain the intended market penetration. In order to make product trainings more successful, one needs to keep in mind few critical aspects. Let’s review some of them here.

Product training is important but product selling is essential: Product knowledge is very important for sales people as they use this information to help prospective customers make favorable decisions. Training managers need keep this aspect in mind. The problem comes when product trainings are focused about the product and not about how to sell the products. Sales people find it easy to understand the functioning of a product. The difficult part is to be able to sell it. This is the area where the training needs to focus on.

Customer value is the key to selling: Product training often focuses on product features and benefits and does not really bother about the value the product provides to customers. It is not adequate to provide the sales person with all the facts and figures that indicate how the product fares in terms of customer value. Information may be obvious but training should put the same across in a logical manner so as to be convincing to a potential customer. Training sales people about customer value addition of the products in a logical way ensures that there is uniformity in the way sales people represent the company and product in the market and this would greatly increase credibility of the product as well as the company.

Product information needs to be taught in the context of industry and market: It does not really help a sales person if he is given just the product information in isolation. Sales personnel need to get a perspective about the industry in which they are operating. There are times when market scenario and economical fluctuations might influence buyers in their decision making. Sales people need to be adaptive to such situations and should be equipped to modify their selling techniques accordingly. This needs to be reflected in product training sessions.

Develop job aids wherever possible: It is not adequate if product training is confined to just annual sales meets or workshops. It is not possible for a sales person to absorb so much information at a single go and recollect it when needed. Therefore, product training should be available just-in-time when the sales person needs it. Job aids in the form of PDF files or short videos should be made available to the sales person in a format that is easy to access. Multiple delivery formats such as podcasts, webcasts, videos and so on would be very effective information resource for sales personnel.

Product sales training would be better appreciated by sales people when it is tuned to address their needs rather than merely disseminating information about products. Do you agree with me? If you have any other ideas please share the same with me.

Related posts:

1. Product Trainings for Sales Force – An Ideal Approach
2. Making Product Trainings for Sales People Relevant
3. Role of Education and Training in Increasing Sales

What is the objective of delivering product training to sales people? Is it just to empower them with the relevant knowledge of features and benefits of products? How can product training help in empowering sales team and thereby increase sales? These are a few questions that a manager needs to answer while planning a product training session for his sales team.

How to empower sales forces with product training?

1) Product training is imparted either by product managers or sales managers depending on the company. However, we need to understand some basic facts. It’s true that a product manager possess an in depth knowledge of the product features and benefits. But at same time, it is also true that he does not possess the knowledge of what is happening in the market – how customers are reacting to it? So, a product manager does not understand the real challenges encountered by a sales person on a day to day basis. Therefore, it would be better if a sales person having sound product knowledge conducts the training session. This has two positive implications. Firstly, while delivering training he/ she will always think from the perspective of a sales person. Secondly, the sales person will feel comfortable in attending the session as they are able to relate theoretical aspects with practical ones.

2) Another important way of empowering a salesperson is by giving him sufficient knowledge about competitor’s product, its features and pricing. This helps them to be ready with answers when customers make a comparative analysis. They also understand the strengths and weaknesses of his own product. Thus it enables the sales people to highlight the positive points of his product.

3) The questions that customers pose while viewing a product demo are quite predictable. These could be related to the product, its usage or its features in comparison to the competitor’s product. So, a simple FAQ list can be prepared and given to sales people. It enables sales person to be mentally prepared with the plausible answers to questions.

4) Role plays are another means to impart product training. It provides practical demonstration of the real life situations that he would encounter when demonstrating a product to a customer. Possible role play scenarios could be – a difficult customer who is not convinced about product features or a customer who complains about faulty product. Role plays can be used to show a sales person how he can handle such situations. It also helps him understand the importance of product knowledge.

5) Quiz is another means by which important features of the product can be highlighted. This not only tests the product knowledge of sales people but also helps in revisiting key product features and other relevant information.

6) Online product training is another option for organizations that do not have resources or budget to invest in the instructor led training programs. This is a cost-effective option to educate sales people about new products or product features in a short notice.

It is true that sales people are one of the representatives of any organization. They are the people who directly face a customer, understand their needs and provide solutions in form of products most appropriate to fulfill their requirements. Therefore, it is important for sales people to understand their products better so that they can educate customers more convincingly. This is where product training becomes very critical.

Related posts:

1. Making Product Trainings for Sales People Relevant
2. Product Trainings for Sales Force – An Ideal Approach
3. Challenges in Product Sales Training – Too Much Knowledge

Developing a highly interactive course is a mammoth operation. If you’re looking to create highly interactive eLearning course using graphics and animation, then Flash is highly recommended. Most of the online product training, sales training and software training require courses with high interactivity for effective learning experience.

Similar kind of output can be achieved using Articulate Engage. Unlike other authoring tools like Lectora and Captivate, Articulate Engage gives you an option to create interactivities, which will help in creating effective learning experience.

Subject Matter Experts (SME) or Instructional Designers (ID) can use these templates to create storyboards and complete the course in short time, making it cost effective.

Some of the popular instructional approaches that can be used are given below along with the Articulate screen shots.

Clickable Circular Diagram: Shows various elements of a process.

FAQs: Useful as a quick reference for sales training kit.

Glossary Template: Highly visual glossary page for explaining the concept or a term easily.

Guided Imagery: Useful for product training and explaining the parts of a product.

Labeled Graphics: Useful to explain software screens or labeling parts of a product. When the user clicks on the rollover icon (hotspot), the explanation for same is displayed.

Media Tour: Useful for animations and embedding videos.

Process: It explains the process/procedure in a step wise format. Recommended for production or manufacturing processes.

Pyramid: Shows various steps or hierarchy levels in a process.

Timelines: Shows history or process of any activity vis-à-vis time.

Click on Tabs: To provide additional information on a given set of topics.

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1. Online Product Training – How does it Work?