Sales enablement and sales training is an investment that results in revenue growth by driving efficiency in your team rather than hiring more sales reps. Yet demonstrating return on investment (ROI) from sales training isn’t necessarily straightforward. It requires access to the right data and the ability generate big picture reports with that data.
So you’re investing in sales training. How can you set up a system that accurately measures sales training ROI and creates the greatest impact possible for your team’s results? Check out these tips to get started:
Create Baseline KPIs
You need baseline data to start measuring your sales training key performance indicators (KPIs). While getting the results during and after your training launch is important, you need something to compare it to. Start by cleaning up your data collection process. Then identify the metrics you plan to watch. Monitor these metrics for a predetermined period to ensure you’ve identified the KPIs best suited to establish ROI and make changes as necessary.
KPIs might include:
- Number of demos scheduled/rep
- Number of meetings scheduled/rep
- Number of opportunities created/rep
- Deal size/rep
- Average time to close opps/rep
- Number of opportunities sales leadership touched/rep
- Number of opportunities closed-won/rep
Having a strong baseline of KPIs will help give you an accurate measurement of your sales training effectiveness.
Invest in Technology
With a sales training program established and a good baseline of KPIs, investing in a modern sales training solution pays off. It’s an important part of getting and proving ROI from sales training.
Traditionally, sales training doesn’t scale easily. With a large, distributed salesforce, it requires a significant investment in airfare, lodging, food and drink, and general travel expenses, not to mention your time. By using a sales training platform, you not only eliminate many of these costs, you can scale training easily, and integrate with your existing sales toolbox to better track KPIs.
One LearnCore customer used our online learning platform to see both a 20% decrease in time to first sale and a significantly faster sales cycle. The investment in technology more than paid off, it helped generate additional revenue more quickly.
Optimize the Sales Training Process
With KPIs in place and a designated solution for tracking and reporting the results of your training, you begin to optimize your sales training process. This goes beyond analyzing numbers. Consider behaviors and outcomes, like:
- Are sales reps behaviors changing due to specific training initiatives?
- Are reps generating new revenue tied to a new product training or certification?
- Are there measurable trends between training scores and sales rep production?
Asking these questions as you evaluate assessment results will give you insight into each reps skills. You might discover the need to tweak or add more training materials. You may find a weak link in your salesforce. Or, you may find a portion of your training that’s particularly effective. Armed with this information, you can use your sales training software to easily modify training material or create custom training sessions for reps who need it.
Looking at both the data and behavior outcomes is the only way to accurately measure your sales training ROI.
Sales training should grow and change with your team and company’s needs. Creating baselines KPIs, investing in technology, and optimizing your sales training process and outcomes will set up your organization for long term, scalable success.
