Multiply Your Sales Coaching Efforts with Modern Learning

At a global contact lens provider, the sales training team recently overcame an all-too-common challenge: doing more with less.

Charged with the training and long-term development of 150 medical device salespeople across the U.S. and Canada, the company’s Sales Development Manager could have asked her “mighty team of five” (as she calls them) to work longer and harder.

Instead, she introduced a “force multiplier”—a tool that enables her staff to produce more high-quality sales coaching and training with less effort—into the training mix.

Trainers Are Scarce, But Not Sales Experts

By adopting Allego’s modern learning platform, the Manager was able to increase the productivity of a scarce resource—the full-time training staff—by amplifying an in-house resource that is not in short supply: sales and marketing experts.

“On the Sales Force Development team, we’re all former salespeople,” says the Manager. “We realize that hearing or seeing what ‘good’ sounds like is really important. But just as important is providing our sales team with model conversations from a variety of experts in different roles.

“Even if a coaching or demonstration video didn’t come directly from a salesperson, the benefit is that the reps get information directly from the subject matter expert. Then, any questions or comments that they have can be posted in the video, and go straight to the expert. They can get answers much more quickly than if the communications had to pass through us.”

Helping Managers Manage Their Coaching

The platform also helps the company’s front line sales managers manage another scarce resource – their time. Because they don’t have to be physically present to coach their reps and provide personalized feedback, managers can increase the quantity and quality of their mentoring. By the same token, reps can practice their pitches and objection handling whenever and wherever they have the time.

According to the Manager, Allego “…allows the managers to create their own videos demonstrating, ‘This is the message I want you to deliver to your doctor. It sounds like this,’ and then they can turn it into an exercise so their team members can repeat that messaging. It takes the middle-man out of the process. It takes the Sales Force Development team out, and lets the sales managers manage the coaching and messaging themselves.”

Product and Program Certifications

The Manager and her team are now using Allego to certify reps on certain products and customer-facing programs, including a mentoring program that pairs new hires with experienced salespeople.

“A sales advisor (a tenured rep) is partnered with a new rep for six months,” she says, “and they work together on all aspects of on-the-job training. We decided to use Allego to prepare and certify the individuals who are going to be participating in that program. We want to make sure that the sales advisors are doing all the best things, and sharing all the best information and stories. By training and certifying the mentors with mobile video, we can ensure that we have some message consistency , and that the advisors feel fully prepared to leverage all the tools they need for the program.”

For more on this topic, read our blog Why Video Sales Coaching is a Better Option