Why is powerful, effective and up-to-date learning management system sales training a must? Sales strategies, and therefore sales training programs, are undergoing sweeping changes in recent years and even months. The new sales strategies are a response to different factors including the economy (tough economy = difficult clients) and the different ways in which customers and potential customers are using the internet.
More and more organizations are tapping into social networks to reach potential customers, understanding that to understand clients, you have to first go where they are going, and see how they are interacting.
Harvard Business School professor Mikolai Jan Piskorski has dedicated years to studying online social networks and how people use them. A recent post on the Harvard Business School blog discusses how Piskorski helps organizations develop strategies for leveraging social networks for profit.
According to Piskorski, corporate marketers struggle with how to use social networking to reach customers. The main problem is that execs think of online social networks as social media, and treat them as simply another channel to get people to click through to a website.
However, Piskorski notes, it doesn’t work out that way. His studies show that people don’t generally click through on ads posted on social networking sites.
"A good analogy is to imagine sitting at a table with friends when a stranger pulls up a chair, sits down, and tries to sell you something while you are talking with your friends. You will not get far with a strategy like this," Piskorski says.
"To be successful," he continues, "you need to shift your mindset from social media to social strategy."
Then there is the shift from pitching to engaging a potential customer in a conversation. The ability to listen and respond to a client’s needs, ask the right questions, and overcome objections by listening rather than pitching are increasingly taught as effective sales techniques.
Conversation-building and tapping into online social networks are just two examples of how traditional sales methods (and therefore LMS sales training) are being edged out, as improved sales strategies are able to respond to factors such as new forms of media and new economic circumstances.
Develop and deliver interactive training courses with Coggno’s Learning Management System (LMS) Online. Simple user interface, potent and cost-effective.
