Change is in the Air
Learning and training for today must be highly contextualized, personal and collaborative. Utilizing a subject matter expert (SME) and an instructional designer (ID) to create a plan for successful sales training has the potential to energize and empower sales staff and ultimately lead to increased sales.
The advances in learning theory and the affordances of technology have created excellent opportunities for ID's to design training that fits the needs of the 21st century workplace and the 21st century employee. You are doing your company a disservice not to take advantage of an instructional designer and the on-line learning environment.
The instructional designer provides a blueprint that serves as the foundation for a successful training program. You wouldn’t build a house without an architect, so why would you design your training program without a designer (Stein, 2012)?
Don't Ditch the Annual Training Seminars
Some of the benefits of this conference are intangible. Annual conferences can provide employees with a break from their usual routine, socializing and networking opportunities, and are a forum to share and collaborate new ideas (Michael Stoller, Personal Communication). “Conversation (including words, images, videos, multimedia, and more) has become the current driver of learning" (Ertmer & Newby, 2013).
Yes, annual training with large numbers of attendees tend to deliver more generic and widespread information but there is a plethora of other things that it offers which cannot be fully realized in other forums. "there is no substitute for face time" ..... All the theoretical training in the world pales compared to meeting face to face with colleagues in your field. Annual conferences bring me many more opportunities than any presentation from head office - relational connection trumps sales training manuals (Ross Allan, Personal Communication).
“It hasn’t made a difference in sales” (CEO, 2105). In this case, since there is not evidence that the annual training does not result in increased sales, a needs performance analysis to determine why sales have been slow or need improvement is required. You need to verify the problem and then identify possible solutions. Within this needs assessment it should be determined what the gap is between desired sales and actual sales. This will help in developing appropriate training solutions.
My suggestion, assuming the annual conference is deemed to be too costly but still valuable, is scaling back to having the annual conference be a bi-annual conference and then hold, smaller more focused regional meetings and have continuous on-line training. throughout the year.
Training and the Instructional Designer
Training is provided with the goal of enduring change in behaviour or the capacity to behave in a given fashion. This will come as a result of practice or experience. The better planned and developed that practice and/ or experience is, the more successful the change in behaviour will be. Therefore, using an instructional designer increases the effectiveness of training.
Instructional designers can translate principles of learning and instruction into specific instructional materials and activities. They can design opportunities for transformation using on-line learning contexts and allow for engagement beyond course activities.
Instructional designers will be able to determine which learning theory and teaching methods will be best, given the outcomes required, employees past experience and environmental factors. For example, introductory knowledge acquisition may be better supported by a more behavioral or cognitivist approach. However, transitioning to a constructivist approach would be advisable. As learners acquire more knowledge this approach provides them with the conceptual power needed to deal with more complex problems (Ertmer & Newby 2013, Veletsianos 2011).
Senior Sales Managers are not Trainers
Wayne Gretsky was the greatest hockey player who ever played the game, yet he was not an effective or productive coach.
New methods are becoming the foundation of current teaching, which includes problem based learning, authentic instruction and computer-supported collaborative learning. Are your senior sales managers fluent in this new learning language?
Still, senior sales staff have experience that could be leveraged in a variety of ways. Senior sales managers can bring experience. They can bring creative ides, and have a good sense of the big picture. They can also inspire others. “Any course of action dependent on productive group process requires effective group leadership”. Your senior sales managers can have a pivotal role to play as leaders.
However, utilizing the resources and expertise of an instructional designer, in combination with the strengths of your senior sales staff, would yield better results.
How do we do this cost effectively while being relevant and authentic?
Leveraging the on-line training environment would be cost effective and productive. Considering the recent launch of new products and an international sales force, your company should use instructional designers to develop on-line training modules. Employees can be directed to topics they need training in and could also choose topics that are of interest to them individually. Within these modules could be opportunities for a blended learning program that incorporates video training, relevant reading, face to face training utilizing case studies and role playing, synchronous conferencing, and transfer of learning reflection tasks.
Outsourcing, and using a company that can develop or has ready made training developed by instructional designers is also a possibility. For example, one such company, which offers insurance training is Oliver's Learning. Oliver’s Learning is a leader in insurance education with over 30 years’ experience in the insurance market. Another example is ITEX which offers customized training solutions to best serve the needs and goals of the client. If courses exist that would fit with your training objectives this could allow for a cost effective solution developed through sound research.
Teaching methods that incorporate the the use of communities of practice have been very effective (Brown 1992, as cited in Ertmer). These communities of practice could be tied to the training modules and be regionally created to allow for easier collaboration and cost efficiency. If sales representatives learn to effectively communicate and interact with others from different backgrounds within their region through case studies and role play, they will likely become better communicators with clients which has the potential to increase customer satisfaction and sales. When talking about training, planning for transfer of learning is imperative. This is best accomplished by the involvement of authentic tasks anchored in meaningful contexts. It is critical that learning occur in realistic settings and that the selected learning tasks be relevant to lived experience (Ertmer & Newby, 2013).
Regional conferences have the ability to bring colleagues together to discuss issues and be trained in more pertinent topics. They have more added value, are more intimate and can be specifically targeted. For example, tax rates are different around the world and require different training. Economic issues are different in different regions and countries and strategies that work in one may not work in another (Michael Stoller, personal communication, 2015).
Finally...
"Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation"
(Voskamp, 2011).Based on the arguments presented, I hope you will reconsider your decision to cut training from your company and consider utilizing an instructional designer to develop training. Your company will thank you for it.
