Mobile Learning for Sales- Addressing 4 Major Sales Force Challenges

It’s hard to imagine the life of a sales representative without challenges. His job is not easy, as he has to face prospects and meet sales targets simultaneously. For a while, let’s put the external challenges aside and think about the issues he faces within the organization. Lack of effective training, timely access to marketing materials, the burden of administrative tasks, etc. can kill your sales reps’ productivity. In this process, your sales team may not perform properly and reach the set sales targets. In all this, your organization’s revenues can get affected.

However, this is not the end of story. You can overcome these challenges with mobile sales enablement applications. Sales teams face many challenges, in this post we will touch upon four challenges and discuss how mobile learning can be the one-stop solution for them.

#1. Sales reps may not retain the training after 90 days

CSO Insights and Sales Performance International (SPI) annual research shows that on an average, half of the content of a sales training event is lost in 5.1 weeks. On an average, 84% of sales training content is lost after 90 days.

This statistic clearly shows the need for sales training reinforcement. Not having a well defined approach for sales training is also a major cause for this challenge. Making the sales training a one-time event or a program is another reason for this issue.

Solution: Reinforcing sales training or providing periodical refresher sales trainings is the solution. However, is it possible to bring the sales force dispersed across various places to a single location for training reinforcement? This may not be a wise decision and also not a cost viable option for organizations.

But you can overcome these challenges with mobile learning. Your sales force is often busy in the field in search of business, going after prospects. They use Smartphones, iPads, tablets, phablets, etc. for their convenience. Chief Sales Officers (CSO) and Sales Training Managers can exploit this option for sales training reinforcement. Mobile learning modules installed as a native application or web-based app in Smartphones, tablets, and iPads will make sales training reinforcement easy.

#2. Marketing materials are not useful

An American Marketing Association (AMA) survey reveals that sales people consider up to 90% of marketing materials useless. AMA also says sales force spends 30 hours a month searching for and creating its own selling materials.

It’s not that marketing materials are totally useless. They may not available to sales representatives on time. They may be lost somewhere in the series of e-mails or hidden in the pile of sales support materials. These marketing materials are not managed properly. These can be some reasons the sales force may not utilize the support materials to the maximum extent.

Initially, sales representatives were using Smartphones and tablets to share product presentations, pictures, brochures, and promotional videos. They just used the in-built features of mobiles for sales purposes. But when I say using mobiles for sales enablement, I am not talking about this.

Solution: I’m talking about designing and deploying integrated sales and marketing applications in your iPads, tablets, and Smartphones that can be a complete help solution for your sales professionals. In this mobile sales enablement application, your sales force get product specification sheets, presentations, product promotional videos, 360 degrees view pictures, brochures’ soft copies, and a whole lot of other features.

You prepare marketing materials in view of your customers. Though it is important, sales people need more insights than customers to sell products. So preparing sales training resources and bite-sized training modules, which can be accessible from mobiles and cater to their needs, can work wonders for your sales force.

Your sales force can access all the product features through native applications or web-based mobile apps. As the Internet is readily available and its reach is expanding rapidly, going for web-based mobile sales enablement applications can be the right choice. However, you can insist on offline access and flexibility to update whenever the Internet connection is available.

#3. CRM adoption rate is low

The Accenture survey of Chief Sales Officers (CSO) revealed that 46% of CSOs say their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool adoption rate is low. They say their sales teams still struggle to use CRM systems.

Some misconceptions about CRM tools sales representatives have include CRM systems are meant for management and not for them, and the CRM can add up administrative burdens such as creating reports and more.

Solution: Develop a mobile CRM application after considering the view of sales teams. This will improve sales productivity by supporting your sales objectives. You can use the developments in mobile technology to make the existing CRM mobile-compatible. This needs to be customized according to the needs of sales teams and customers, because they interact with each other frequently.

#4. Administrative tasks eating up sales rep’s time

According to The Economist, 71% of reps say they spend too much time doing data entry. CSO Insights says only 33% of sales rep’s time is spent on actual selling.

Your sales teams need to focus more on selling than finishing administrative tasks. Pre and post-sales processes, capturing the prospects’ data, filling up too many details in the CRM, all these tasks tax your sales teams.

Solution: Mobile sales enablement tools in the form of web-based mobile apps come to your aid. These can minimize the data entry procedures. It’s very easy to update prospects’ database and import into CRM systems. This will simplify administrative complexities. Providing access to sales materials on mobile devices through sales enablement applications can also ease sales reps’ work load. Mobile applications for extended training and performance support solutions can solve this issue.

Mobile sales enablement solution in the form of the web applications can easily tackle the discussed four challenges of sales representatives. You can reinforce sales training and offer refresher trainings easily through mobile applications in a cost-effective manner. You can ease the burden of administrative tasks and make sales support materials handy to sales teams. You can tackle many challenges with the versatility of mobile devices.

So why don’t you consider sales enablement through mobile applications?

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