The Big ROI of Better Sales Onboarding

Seventh in a series of posts about the ROI of sales training technology.

The previous posts on sales training ROI explained the four basic sources of return on investment that sales training investments deliver. Two you surely knew about: cost reduction and revenue growth. And two you might not have realized you were already delivering: risk reduction and reduced undesirable attrition! Now let’s see how these sources of ROI get generated when you improve one of the main sales training “jobs” – onboarding newly hired reps. 

The power of video-based sales training is clear to those who have utilized it. The findings are that it gets people up to speed faster and helps them maintain a higher level of performance. We have captured specific gains in this area that our most successful customers enjoy consistently. 

Start Sales Onboarding Earlier  

When a new sales rep joins a team, the learning curve is steep and time is of the essence. Revenue opportunities are lost when new sales hires wait weeks or even months until the next scheduled sales “boot camp”. The quicker a new team member starts getting up to speed, the sooner they close business and boost revenue.

Sales organizations with the most productive onboarding programs used the power of video sales coaching and mobility extraordinarily well to ramp up onboarding time and share peer-to-peer best practices. They get foundational recordings explaining their product or service’s value into the hands of new reps right away. On many topics, salespeople give videos from their peers – sellers with a proven successful track record – the highest credence, which makes them more willing to really hear and learn.

Keep Onboarding Budgets in Line

Using video-based learning tools saves travel costs, both budgetary and in the time and wear and tear on employees. In practice, our customers average training-cost savings of around two thousand dollars for each sales rep. By shortening and focusing (rather than necessarily eliminating) in-person kickoffs, enterprises can realize significant positive impacts. By combining the use of technology and good old-fashioned in-person training, our customers get the benefits of gathering people together in “live” videos – personal contact and team-building, along with the advantages of a sales learning platform.

Get New Reps Ready to Sell Sooner

Many of our customers had previously figured in a nine month “lag time” for a new hire to be onboarded, trained, and gotten up to speed enough to finally be effective in client-facing situations. However, the use of a video-based training platform with microlearning, reinforcement quizzes and drills and collaborative peer and manager feedback can cut that time to “first deal” nearly in half. That’s serious ROI for many organizations.

Also worth mentioning is the positive effect video-based training has on an employer’s relationship with millennial staff. Millennials are natives to this way of learning and communicating in smaller, bite-sized chunks of information. Using mobile and video tools in the workplace is a natural fit for them, as well. And, since their presence in the workforce will only continue to grow, getting these training methods in place as soon as possible will pay off down the line by reducing unwanted attrition.

Identify Onboarding Issues Quickly

As a sales coaching tool, a high-performing learning platform can make a real difference in helping to identify early on the reps that have the skills needed to sell successfully – and those that don’t. It can help an enterprise identify struggling reps more quickly so that they can be coached up or, if necessary, replaced before there is a negative effect on the whole team. These employees represent significant risks – not knowing their stuff or saying the wrong thing can result in lost business opportunities, possible compliance issues (especially in regulated industries) and overall brand damage.

Reinforce Onboarding Lessons in the Field

Memory is very much a “use it or lose it” function in the human brain. We remember best those things that are presented repetitively over time. Reinforcement of knowledge with periodic refreshers is a key component of a sales learning platform. A new hire gets overloaded with information during an initial boot camp — then they proceed to forget 80 percent of what was learned and thus don’t perform as well as they should. With Allego, trainers can have new reps practice the sales pitch via video and provide feedback remotely, and also deliver spaced repetition of key facts to ensure long-term recall and utilization.

The sales onboarding process is filled with challenges. An effective mobile-based and video-enabled sales learning platform can make new employee training more convenient, engaging and effective, and ultimately result in greater sales training ROI and a healthier bottom line.

For an easy-to-digest overview of the ROI of sales training technology, grab our new eBook.