Online Training LMS, Sales Training

How Online Sales Training Can Improve the Bottom Line for Large Enterprises

by Debbie Williams

Eighty-three percent of companies do not believe they have effective sales training, according to the RAIN Group.¹ That’s a crucial mistake, since effective sales training improves a company’s bottom line not only by helping sales professionals close more details, but by improving other key business metrics such as cost and employee retention.

While improving sales training in any manner will improve business KPIs, many large enterprises choose to deliver sales training in an online format because eLearning is cost-effective, reusable, and promotes staff retention. With online sales training, companies can magnify the benefits they would get simply by improving in-person sales training.

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3 Ways Online Sales Training Will Benefit Your Company’s Bottom Line

1. Online sales training provides for low-cost continuous learning that increases the likelihood that your team will hit their quotas -- Sales training varies widely in cost. According to LinkedIn, a sales training company may charge clients $500 per person, per month at the minimum.² If companies want to pay per day, they could be looking at a fee of $5,000-$15,000.

The high cost of training may contribute to the fact that just “44% of organizations use post-training reinforcement to provide long-term support for their sales teams,” per MindFlash.³ It’s possible that ongoing training is simply too expensive, especially for companies with a large salesforce.

Because it is reusable, companies can offer ongoing online sales and customer service training for a lower cost than in-person employee training. For example, sales training content from onboarding programs can be repurposed for mini refresher courses and microlearning segments. Also, sales training content used in more advanced eLearning courses for inside sales reps can be tweaked to meet the needs of sales employees in other roles, such as outside sales, sales support, client services, and lead generation professionals.

By repurposing online sales training content, large enterprises can offer continuous learning. According to Mindflash, organizations using post-training reinforcement see higher improvements in their bottom line than those that don’t. For instance, they could see up to a 10 percent increase in the number of sales team members who hit their quotas.4

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2. Online sales training is cost-effective -- Online sales training is often cheaper than live training. For in-person training, a contributor to Forbes calculated the cost of a private sales meeting retreat for 25 representatives.5 After factoring the average cost of airfare, hotel, meals, labor, transportation, group activity, costs per person, and instruction room rental, the contributor estimated that the potential investment before a facilitator was $103,750.

For companies with a large sales force, eLearning is more cost-effective for training. Online sales training includes the cost of a learning management system, an instructional designer, and possibly off-the-shelf content and LMS add-ons. While eLearning is a significant financial investment, it can ultimately improve a company’s bottom line.

For example, we can compare the $103,750 price tag for a weekend of in-person sales training with the average yearly spend for an enterprise LMS - just $70,614.6 Considering the difference between a weekend of training and a full year of eLearning, those cost savings could have a significant impact on your business and the resources you have to devote to your sales team’s professional development.

3. Online sales training lowers sales turnover and associated costs -- High turnover for sales positions can be a major financial burden to a large enterprise. While the cost of replacing a sales associate varies depending on what the employee earns, expenses are considerable. For example, the Center for American Progress said it costs about $4,800 to replace an employee who makes roughly $30,000 per year.7 Your top sales associates often earn much more than $30,000, especially if you’re working in B2B or have a complex product. That means you’re looking at even higher turnover costs.

Sales training reduces turnover for sales positions, according to the Sales Readiness Group.8 This has a positive effect on a large company’s bottom line as it prevents the replacement of sales associates and lowers turnover-related costs.

Use an LMS to Deliver Online Sales Training

For large enterprises, a learning management system is often the best option for delivering online sales training to staff. A hosted LMS offers administrators tools to create, distribute, and track sales training that drives business goals and improves a company’s bottom line.

Sales Training
Learn more about how an eLearning system can benefit your enterprise in Supercharge Your Sales Team’s Efforts with an LMS.

Learn more about digital transformation using Salesforce.com 


References:
1RAIN Group. Improves sales skills with sales training. https://www.rainsalestraining.com/solutions/improve-sales-skills.
2LinkedIn. How much does sales training cost? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-does-sales-training-cost-troy-elmore-telmore-sandler-com.
3, 4 Mindflash. Can you prove that training directly increases sales revenue? https://www.mindflash.com/blog/prove-training-increases-sales-revenue.
5Forbes. How much does sales training cost? https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianaltman/2014/12/01/how-much-does-sales-training-cost/#615f3c3253ee.
6Capterra. LMS industry user research report. https://www.capterra.com/learning-management-system-software/user-research.
7The Center for American Progress. There are significant business costs to replacing employees. https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/CostofTurnover.pdf.
8 Sales Readiness Group. Study reveals the importance of sales training. https://www.salesreadinessgroup.com/blog/study-reveals-the-importance-of-sales-training.

Debbie Williams

Debbie Williams

Director, Marketing