Looking forward to a short summer break after closing out a hectic second quarter, instead my product-manager husband spent the weekend preparing a presentation for his company’s national sales meeting in two weeks. At the high-tech company where he works, his team is responsible for bringing products to market, but also making sure that their global sales team has the information and tools they need to sell them.
Like many other companies, they bring their team together every July for this big meeting and everyone seems to enjoy it. The event is generally held at a really nice hotel, and there’s always a time for a little fun. With new products to sell, management’s excited about the prospects for the next few quarters. My husband’s happy because it guarantees him time with the sales reps to push his new products.
If you asked their sales people, however, you might get a different response. During the event, they consume four to five days worth of information on product features, advantages, applications, technologies, targets, competitors and so on. Already overwhelmed by the complexities of their current products – and time away from selling – by the time they get back to the office, they’re ready for the decompression chamber.
Regardless, events can be crucial to the success of new product launches. But do reps really have what they need to go forth and pitch the new product(s) effectively? Are they prepared to handle potential customer objections correctly? Can they create a winning proposal? Are their selling skills up to snuff? Companies spend billions each year on sales training just to be sure.
In a recent study of pharmaceutical sales representatives conducted by Best Practices, LLC, the budget to train reps on new products, medicines, disease states, treatments and regulatory rules averages almost $10, 500 a year. Now multiply that times a thousand sales reps.
If that math isn’t enough to make you think twice, here comes the harsh reality: Even your best people will forget 80% of what they learned within days and weeks after the sales meeting. According to the man who discovered this, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, people forget facts at a predictable rate and the greatest learning actually occurs by taking in small amounts of information repeatedly over time.
I bring this up only because it’s a pretty well-known fact. Every good sales manager, trainer or product manager combats the “forgetting curve” with an arsenal of reinforcement approaches. Some of these methods include emails, eLearning modules, regional conference calls and infield mentoring.
For one Qstream customer – like most of them – these approaches were the norm. But emails got lost in the fray. eLearning modules were mostly inconvenient and often unengaging. Regional conference calls meant more time away from selling, and leaving new product coaching up to field sales management led to inconsistency…and even confusion.
Seeking a better return on their sizable sales meeting investments, the company realized that any approach to reinforcing the messages and skills delivered there needed to be at once fast, convenient, engaging and far-reaching – while offering the insights management needed to improve sales performance.
As a test, the customer randomly divided sales meeting participants into three groups: those who attended the meeting and received some reinforcement using traditional methods; those who attended the meeting and received reinforcement via Qstream; and a third group who received reinforcement via high-touch mentoring.
Here's what they found. In tests conducted immediately after the sales event, and again 30 days later, the first group demonstrated 74% overall retention of key product information and messages. The second group using only Qstream for reinforcement, however, showed the same result as the third group who benefitted from high-touch infield mentoring with retention rates greater than 85%.
If it’s true that reps only sell what they can remember, how much more revenue could you achieve using Qstream to increase knowledge retention after your next sales meeting? If you want to find out, give us a call.