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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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How to Use Sales Training to Solve Major B2B Pain Points

In B2B sales training, there are always pain points, and a lot of them typically come back to information, or a lack thereof. Whether it’s pricing, product information or interactions between departments, the B2B industry always presents challenges. But with those pains come an opportunity to ease them with effective sales training and a strong learning strategy paired with a great learning platform.

Organizations can solve some of their B2B sales pains by investing in learning and development, which goes well beyond the annual sales kickoff meeting or new product release training. Learning, embedded within a company’s culture and powered by a robust e-learning platform, gives sales teams access to all the information they need to be successful. Learning platforms can also provide a venue for your best salespeople to upload their own learnings and share knowledge that would otherwise remain locked in the minds of only a few people across the organization.

This blog will discuss specific pain points felt by B2B sales teams, but from a high level it is important to understand why sales training is critically important to increase revenue. Sales training in the context of e-learning combines the importance of sales development and learning, and make it constantly available, regularly updated and meticulously relevant to the specific needs of a diverse sales team. Additionally, online sales training helps to in 5 major areas:

B2B sales teams also face challenges when it comes to learning in the context of enabling an enterprise’s external stakeholders, i.e. customers, partners and members. When B2B organizations are looking to extend their reach through external vendors and partners, learning can be the linchpin that makes success possible. When working with external partners and vendors, pain is constantly seen in the transmission of information across the extended enterprise, in terms of consistency of messaging and more.

This blog post will examine 6 major sales pain points and discuss how learning might be the solution and remedy to ease a sales team’s suffering.

1. Up-to-date Information When Needed

Often time, sales teams suffer from a lack of information, especially when they need it most. Pain can rear its ugly head during a demo call, when considering how to respond to challenging e-mail, or any other time throughout the sales process, particularly with new sales staff.

Modern online learning platforms allow for information to be available to sales teams at all times, updated in real time and accessible regardless of whether the team members are in the office or have direct access to subject-matter experts. Traditional training relies on singular formal learning experiences and access to SMEs, but often times doesn’t provide social learning opportunities to sales staff to learn from their colleagues or more importantly to share their own knowledge. That means that there are information points that are not communicated, or if they are, they’re quickly glossed over during a formal learning classroom experience and often time forgotten.

E-learning on the other hand provides a platform where all information is both stored, updated regularly and communicated to the necessary learners at the right time. Both information and up-to-date demos and product feature content can be uploaded and accessed anytime through a learning platform. With advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, there is also the opportunity to ensure that admins and managers are prompted with recommendations on who on their team should have the information – and when. AI also makes it simple to search and find the exact right content your sales teams need, when they need it by making search engines smarter and informed providing a more in-depth knowledge pool to pull from.

One simple use of a e-learning platform is to house a regularly updated sales playbook.

Formalizing a sales process is proven to increase revenue. In fact, according to research done by the Harvard Business Review, companies that master a formal sales process see 28% higher revenue growth.

A sales playbook, formalized and taught through a learning platform that can be regularly updated with those updates efficiently communicated regularly to sales teams means the effort put into the development of the process will be useful and properly taught throughout the sales team. This is especially true with sales teams that work remotely and through global offices. e-learning ensures that everyone is on the sames page and utilizing the sames practices and process that are proven to work.

2. Filling in Partner and Vendor Gaps

Increasing B2B sales operations often requires extended operations through the use of partners and vendors. In these scenarios, sales teams often feel pain when it comes to enabling their vast and growing networks. In order to ensure sales teams remain aligned in extended enterprises, there needs to be a way to accurately train vendors and partners in pricing, and bundles and solutions while making sure they’re using the correct, approved and up-to-date content.

With e-learning, organizations can ensure that all parties involved in selling are adequately informed and have access to formalized training material that is consistent with internal sales team best practices. Multi-audience training scenarios often require distance learning and the ability to transmit information across physical distances. Robust online training platforms allow for the creation of multiple training touch points helping to remedy the often overlooked sales pain point wherein extensions of an enterprise are left feeling as though they are on an island.

Within the B2B industry, partners and vendors are at a particular disadvantage if they are not given proper access to information from within an organization. Today, B2B sales teams require a much more in depth knowledge of customer needs and their pain points.With a learning platform and e-learning material, organizations can ensure that their networks have the tools they need and immediate access to important knowledge points to confidently sell a product in a competitive business landscape.

3. Reconnect Disconnected Departments

Sales operations taking place within a complex organizational structure often require informational input from multiple internal stakeholders and departments. Advanced learning management systems (LMS) allow for information to come from multiple sources within an organization, while also providing the oversight to ensure accuracy.

There are also various plugins and integrations that seamlessly allow to the connection between learning platforms and the other tools being used within an organizations tech stack.

Solving the disconnection is becoming increasingly important in larger B2B organizations. One example where an organization can use their LMS and e-learning content to help connect to departments would be between sales and marketing.

Increasingly, sales teams employ content marketing strategies. Because of this, teams need to be in direct and constant contact with the marketing team that is developing the content. Additionally, that contact needs to be a two way street, where the sales team is helping to inform the marketing team of what they’re seeing during the sales cycle and what content they need to be most successful.

On both sides, e-learning can help to generate the dialogue, be a place to share the content, and help to train new and existing sales team members on how best to implement content marketing strategies throughout their sales process. Learning platforms like Docebo are particularly poised to take on this particular challenge through the use of social learning, allowing team members on both sides to upload their content directly helping to proliferate the knowledge and capabilities of an organization at the point of need.

4. Competition Is Almost as High as Customer Knowledge

According to a report by Forrester, 59% of buyers in the B2B industry are doing their own research either before or instead of with a sales rep.

That means a sales team, once engaged needs to be prepared and more knowledgeable about the wider industry, and the complex needs of the customer before ever getting on a call. While a lot of that knowledge will come from external research, if there are buyer personas that are being sold to e-learning and help to at least give a leg up on that research, helping to teach where sales teams should be looking for information, how they should be looking, and the important questions to be asking themselves throughout the research process.

Pricing is also a challenge, particularly when it comes to a complex solutions marketplace chalked full of competition. e-learning helps to solve that pain point by allowing managers to closely monitor the pricing changes taking place across their various product solutions being offered during the sales cycle by a sales team. An LMS can also be a place where competitor information is shared by sales people during their discovery with a customer so the wider teams, including product development and marketing can get a better sense of who they are competing with and what those competitors are offering.

Learning platforms allow for the centralization of information, meaning L&D professionals and sales managers can rest assured knowing that their teams have to most up-to-date pricing information and solutions options when they need it.

5. Configurable products make for highly complex problems

Within B2B sales, products can be offered in complex ways. To ensure your sales team understands the full scope of configurations that are available means that they’ll always be able to offer the exact right solution to meet prospects needs.

Sales teams use learning management systems to ensure they’re always going into sales meetings with the right information and a deeper understanding the complex ways their products can be implemented to meet customer needs.

Sales pain is especially felt when products reach their end-of-life, are being updated or are in need of replacing, the same is true when it comes to knowing where your competitors products are in their life cycle.

e-learning provides centralizations of product information and competitor information.

6. Sharing tribal knowledge about customer pain and important pieces of information

Tribal knowledge can hinder the success of a growing sales team in both small and large businesses. Lorri Freifeld, from Traingingmag.com, defines the term nicely as, “the collective knowledge of the organization contained within the context and boundaries of the various “tribes” (business units, functions, product teams, and project teams) that make up the organization.” e-learning can provide a place where that contained knowledge of your various business groups can be both stored and proliferated for use by everyone within an organization.

The risk of the side effects of tribal knowledge can impact growing sales teams and sales teams who are beginning to grow externally. With e-learning, the best practices and tactics being used by your internal sales team can be shared with a wider network of sales operations, ensuring that the secret sauce to a sales team success if being put to use across every facets of an organization’s sales operation.

E-learning Can Help Solve B2B Sales Pains

Above are only a few of the ways that a robust learning management system (LMS), combined with a strategic learning and development strategy can help to solve some of the pains being felt by a B2B sales team.

If you’re looking to take your B2B sale to the next level, start a free 14-day trial with Docebo today and see the difference that e-learning can make in your organization.

Download our free 14-day trial to explore what’s possible.

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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The 10 Trends That Will Help You Unlock The Potential of Mobile Learning

Download the free report to gather the knowledge you need to prepare your L&D activities for the mobile-first future!

Mobile devices aren’t simply a part of a new reality, they’ve taken over in the way people consume content and are a must-have if you’re going to connect with not only the fresh-faced workers of the future.

Are you ready for the mobile-first future? Docebo’s latest whitepaper outlines the top mobile learning trends mobile that should be on your radar for 2019 (including a few actionable insights that will help you implement them).

For example: It’s all about BYOD

With the proliferation of mobile devices in the learning space, it’s only logical that the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement will continue to expand, as learners expect the kind of flexibility and consistency learning on their own devices provides them. While some organizations have been hesitant to allow employees the freedom that comes with using personal devices and the associated risks, many are finding the balance between freedom and control for work-related duties, including learning.

Benefits of BYOD for mobile learning include:

Positive work environment: By allowing employees to use their own devices for work and training, you’re automatically appeasing their enthusiasm for using those devices and the apps they spend time on in their personal lives, while freeing them from the laptop or cell phone the organization may have chosen for them that they will always relate back to…work. Doing so creates an experience that’s almost as enjoyable as those on social networks, where they have the freedom to consume and share whatever content they choose. This organically boosts engagement with specific learning content to deliver a boost in knowledge retention and an improvement in overall performance, while satisfying the learners desire for on-the-job development opportunities.

Increased productivity: Eliminating the need to learn on an unfamiliar device gives learners a way to immediately put all of their focus into job-specific training, and access support materials 24/7, giving them the flexibility to choose when it’s most convenient for them to complete their training.

Reduced costs: The organization benefits from reduced overhead and IT costs with a BYOD policy. Additionally, as employees upgrade to the latest devices more frequently than any organization is able, you’re giving learners a way to enjoy your learning content on the latest and greatest technologies – which also provides the organization the flexibility to more deeply leverage advancing technological content changes.

Download our free report to get your eyes on a number of exciting mobile learning trends, including:

The importance of a mobile-first design

Why video is the king of content

Why mobile learning and gamification go hand-in-hand

And much more

Gather the knowledge you need to prepare your L&D activities for the mobile-first future!

DOWNLOAD NOW

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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Inspired by Toronto: Must-See Attractions and Must-Eat Food

Inspiration At Your Doorstep – Docebo Inspire offers up the best of what Toronto has to offer

DoceboInspire is coming to Canada’s biggest city, Toronto! In honour of this great city, we want to go through a few of the can’t miss experiences that should be on your must-do list while you’re in the city.

The conference runs from Oct 10 – 12, but there are plenty of reasons to stick around a little longer and take in Canada’s largest and arguably most exciting city.

Staying downtown at the Sheraton Centre Hotel means that you’re in the heart of Canada’s cultural epicentre. Before we get into it, we should clarify to those who are worried that October might be a little chilly – never fear, you’re beating the worst of the weather by about a month. With your hotel right in the heart of things, you’ll have unfettered access to some of the most incredible restaurants (within walking distance), amazing sights and incredible cultural experiences the city has to offer. A vibrant, big-time city abuzz with activity, you’ll always have something new to discover in “The Big Smoke.”

Toronto is full of attractions and deeply rooted in cultures from all around the world. A walk through any neighbourhood is certain to uncover endless inspiration. A cultural mosaic in the truest sense, Toronto represents and is stoked in a deep and beautiful expression of all the people who call it home. If you’ve never been to Toronto, now is the perfect time to tack on a few extra days after the L&D event of the year to take in the sights and taste the incredible food scene.

Here are a few MUST-SEE attractions to put on your #DoceboInspire 2018 bucket list.

1. The CN Tower

The star of Toronto’s skyline. If you have the time while you’re in the city, don’t miss the chance to take the elevator up the 9th largest free-standing tower in the world. Completed in 1976, this tower is a can’t miss attraction of the city. Even without taking the tour to the top, just seeing the tower in person takes your breath away. The tower is also right beside the venue for this years DoceboInspire Learning Awards so you’ll have a chance to take it in on October 11th even if you don’t have the time to take a ride to the top!

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

2. Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada

Take a walk underwater and experience 5.7 million litres (1.5 million gallons) of marine and freshwater habitats from across the world. The exhibits hold more than 20,000 exotic sea and freshwater specimens from more than 450 species. The Aquarium, is located next to the CN Tower and combining the two will make for a fantastic Saturday morning if you decide to stay in the city after the conference.

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

3. St. Lawrence Market

Located the heart of old Toronto, the St. Lawrence Market is the perfect place to start a Saturday stroll or to see what’s in season! The St. Lawrence Market South, on the south side of Front St, is open Tuesday to Saturday, featuring food stalls, restaurants and the St. Lawrence Market Gallery. If you find yourself the time to stop by, do yourself a favour and pick up a local favourite, the must-have peameal sandwich.

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

4. The Historic Distillery District

The Distillery District is an architectural must-see. Located east of of the Sheraton Centre Hotel, the district contains numerous cafés, restaurants, and shops housed within heritage buildings of the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery. Walk along the cobbled streets lined by more than forty heritage buildings. The district is the largest collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture in North America.

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

5. Nathan Phillips Square – Visit the Toronto Sign

Directly across the street from the hotel and conference centre is Toronto City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square. The square is also home to a instagram-ready 3D Toronto sign, installed during the 2015 Pan American Games it has since become an iconic landmark in its own right.

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

There’s so much to see in Toronto, we couldn’t fit it all into this single blog post. Learn about even more can’t miss Toronto attractions!

All that sightseeing is bound to work up an appetite. Thank goodness Toronto is home to some of the most inspired restaurants in not only Canada, but perhaps all of North America. Regardless of what you crave, Toronto is sure to have the right bite to satisfy.

Get Your Feed On

Engage your inner foodie. From Italian, to Thai, to pub fare with over 100 beers on tap and everything in between, Toronto is sure to keep you full with delicious food. Staying downtown at the Sheraton also means you’ll have immediate access to some of the best dining experiences, all within a short walk or easy trip on a streetcar with the TTC!

Take a look through our top ten restaurants that are our absolute favourite spots that you have to try if you find yourself looking for something to eat while you’re in the city.

MUST-EAT Restaurants to try during #DoceboInspire.

1. Estiatorio Volos

Named Toronto’s best Greek seafood restaurant, Estiatorio Volos is a refined, contemporary setting, setting the absolute perfect mood for a post conference bite with your new group of friends and peers.

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

2. PAI

Underground, authentic Thai restaurant that is a must try in the entertainment district. Not your traditional Thai, this place plates up dishes inspired by northern cuisine.

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

3. Figo

Incredible patio, even when the temperature turns a bit cooler in October. The food is Italian with an ambiance that makes you want to enjoy every bite and every minute. Feels upscale without upscaling your budget.

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

4. King Taps

This expansive two-storey bar offers 50 draught beers, pub staples, sports & outdoor seating. One of the newest pubs to the downtown area, it’s a must try if you’re looking to try a different beer for every round.

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

5. Drake One Fifty

No, this doesn’t have to do with Toronto’s very own Drizzy. Drake One Fifty is a mainstay of the financial district with an incredible atmosphere and even better food. They offer upscale Canadian dishes served in a stylish space with art, leather booths & a sidewalk patio.

Directions from The Sheraton Centre Hotel

Read through the rest of our ten MUST-TRY restaurants that will inspire you while you’re in the Six.

No matter what you’re looking for, Toronto won’t disappoint. We’re so excited to be able to share one of the many places around the world we call home with you. DoceboInspire is an event not to be missed, and if you can swing it, book a few extra days at the Sheraton and experience all the beauty, culture and amazing food the city has to offer.

Come be inspired!

Get your #DoceboInspire ticket today and be Inspired by Toronto.

Get your #DoceboInspire Ticket

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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5 Ways to Prepare Your Learning Programs For Gen Z – The Mobile-First Workforce

While Millennials made it clear mobile learning was a necessity, Gen Z will push your organization to perfect it.

Generation Z (Gen-Z), a fresh-faced, straight out of college cohort is guaranteed to be even more disruptive than their Millennial counterparts in the world of work and learning, especially as it relates to the popularity and growth of mobile learning.

Born after the mid-90’s and raised in the 2000s, Gen Z will soon account for 20% of working adults (by 2020), rounding out a workforce made up of four generations working alongside one another (Baby Boomers, Gen X and Millennials).

Indeed, Millennials made the need for mobile learning clear, Gen Z will be the generation that forces organizations to perfect it. Doing so means a shift in the development of learning programs that considers a mobile-first design accessible to all learners, anywhere, anytime.

Here are 5 learning considerations guaranteed to connect with Gen Z:

Develop a video content library (and make sure it’s equipped with seamless search functionalities)

Establish a collaborative learning culture that’s backed by technology

Always show them why what they’re learning is important (justify the value of all learning content)

Incorporate self-directed learning and critical thinking into learning programs, especially in a way that leverages technology

Ensure all of the above strategies are developed with mobile delivery capabilities at top of mind

This presents a new and exciting challenge in the world of corporate learning.

Docebo’s newest whitepaper explores the exciting world of Gen Z and how they’ll impact your learning programs. Download Gen Z is in The Building: Prepare Yourself for a Mobile-First Workforce, for additional insights into developing learning programs that connect with the mobile-first workforce, including:

Millennials and Gen have less in common than you might think – and how those differences will impact your learning programs

Connecting with Gen Z means knowing what makes them tick (it might surprise you)

Why embracing change while building in adaptability to your learning programs is key to success in today’s mobile-first workplace

See how Docebo can help you prepare for the mobile-first workforce.

DOWNLOAD NOW!

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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10 Stats That Prove Mobile Learning Lives up to The Hype

Are you curious to know what the future of mobile learning looks like? Come and see for yourself!

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the momentum of mobile technologies hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. After all, more people than ever before – 2 billion, in fact – are constantly head-down, tapping away on their touch-screens, messaging friends on Facebook, sharing selfies on Instagram, or working on big projects over Slack.

Indeed, there’s a lot of chatter about mobile learning and how it can be most effectively worked into the L&D mix. It’s not a new topic in the world of corporate learning, but rather one that’s been dependent on developments in technology (and the functionalities delivered by those technologies) to satisfy the needs of learning organization and the users of their e-learning platforms.

The benefits of mobile learning are well-known for organizations both big and small, especially as it relates to improved knowledge retention and increased employee engagement. These factors are even more important when you consider the fact that workforces around the world are at a crossroads, on which Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers are retiring (or preparing to), making way for the mobile-dependant Millennial and Gen-Z cohorts.

Making sure your learning activities connect with this new workforce depends on your ability to make your content seamlessly accessible through mobile devices.

The future of mobile learning might look a little different than you’d expect. Here are 10 stats that prove that making the leap into mobile-enabled learning will be the core component to guiding your learning activities into the future.

64% of learners find accessing their training content from a mobile device essential [Towards Maturity]

43% of learners see improved productivity levels compared to non-mobile users [Towards Maturity]

89% of smartphone users download apps, 50% of which are used for learning [Towards Maturity]

46% of learners use mobile learning before they go to sleep at night [Learner Events]

The number of mobile-only users (27%) has grown, now surpassing desktop-only users (14%) [Google].

Mobile device users will own three to four personal devices by the end of 2018 [Global Mobile Market]

71% of Millennials say they connect more with mobile learning than L&D activities delivered via desktop or formal methods. [Gallup]

The average person spends 2 hours and 51 minutes on their smartphone each day, looking at it roughly 221 times and touching its screen more than 2,600 times. [Dscout]

65% of all digital media is viewed on smartphones [Marketing Land]

Smartphone learners complete course material 45% faster than those using a computer. [Lynda]

Join Docebo on August 30 as we go on an interactive deep dive into the future of mobile learning. Insights will include:

What are we hearing from our customers, and the greater learning industry, as a service provider

What’s worked with mobile learning technologies of the past (and how Docebo has worked to refine them), and;

An interactive demo of the new Docebo mobile app, which has been designed with the end-user in mind and give them complete access to their learning platform from the device of their choosing (iOS, Android)

Come see the future of mobile learning for yourself!

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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How to Boost Revenues With Improved LMS-based Sales Training

Ensure your sales team has the knowledge and learning resources they need to succeed.

Revenue is the key to success for companies across the globe, and the sales team is on the front line every day competing for business against your rivals. Making sure your sales team is coming to the table prepared and knowledgeable isn’t just a nice to have, it’s a need to have.

Training your sales team using a Learning Management System (LMS) provides the opportunity, for example, to increase the product knowledge they need to do their jobs effectively and conduct regular performance assessments. With the Docebo platform, L&D professionals can provide sales staff a place where newer staff members can ask questions of experts within an organization using a social learning platform like Coach & Share.

Why Is Online Sales Training Important

Sales training in general has and will continue to be a key component to organizational success. Traditionally, sales training has taken the form of an annual kick-off meetings, followed by occasional formal in-classroom training sessions. The skills gained through traditional training provides your sales teams with product need-to-know, but the retention levels needed to be successful generally aren’t there. Articulating competitive advantages and having a pulse on the competition requires an ongoing approach to sales training. Providing your sales team with regular training opportunities and access to subject-matter experts gives them a tool that helps them always have a leg up on the competition.

Online sales training continues to provide the information that is critical to your sales teams success, but it provides the information to them when and where they need it, while also allowing a social experience with other employees within the company. The reality is, in the competitive environment your sales team works in, they need continuous training and are hungry to learn, with a desire to constantly improve their ability to sell.

Consider these four benefits of online sales training provided by eLearning Industry:

Online sales training can increase confidence and job satisfaction while also improve knowledge and skills retention.

Online learning can also help your sales teams stay up-to-date on products and procedures on an ongoing basis.

Enabled by a robust learning platform, such as Docebo, sales training can also include opportunities to identify (and address) different strengths and weaknesses to further improve performance.

Identifying areas for improvement can establishing opportunities to create the learning content necessary to close any gaps, while identifying various strengths give L&D a bounty of learning opportunities that can be shared across the wider sales team, aligning the entire sales organization.

Think about the last time you started a new job, how many questions did you have daily? This is especially true if you’re jumping in headfirst to a new sales team selling a new product. For the majority of companies, a traditional onboarding program is very costly and not always as effective as it probably should be. On the other hand, developing your sales training program through a LMS that provides specific information points, while also offering a social learning component allows your new hires to ask questions at the time-of-need to internal subject-matter experts, L&D departments can use their learning platform you can provide information they need, when they need it and more importantly on an ongoing basis that is relevant well beyond their first few weeks of employment.

Perhaps the biggest reason that online sales training is important is that your sales team is expecting it. The modern learner is used to having information available to them at their fingertips and by providing the information your teams need online through a robust learning platform you’re giving your sales team the information they need in the format they’ve come to expect. A recent Gallup poll found 87% of Millennials (compared with 69% of non-Millennials) approach jobs as development opportunities, providing ongoing training sets the stage for the opportunity.

Additionally, according to a Zenger/Folkman survey, 72% employees actively seek feedback to improve their performance. Your sales team wants feedback that is constructive, nearly 60% of respondents in that same poll indicated they wanted genuine corrective pointers. With online sales training, you have the power to provide the content your team is looking for to improve their sales performance, while increasing their knowledge and capabilities on an ongoing basis.

Online Sales Training Strategies

Research indicates that your sales teams are looking for training opportunities, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be engaged with the content. Online sales training still needs to be approached strategically with careful consideration of the how, the why and what will be measured.

Offer Your Teams Varying Training Options

Chances are, your team is full of a variety of different learners, all with their own unique learning styles. Learning content needs to be varied to ensure that it works for everyone. Some learners need to be served visual content, such as online presentations, videos, and virtual instructor-led courses. Other learners might be more auditory, so they’ll need to be given material that provides the information, but can also be presented with the opportunity to ask questions and hear the answers. An online learning platform gives them a way to record themselves, review material and listen to it together with different subject-matter experts or direct managers.

Provide Assessment Opportunities

It is extremely important to provide opportunities for assessment. Even if the content is ongoing, there needs to be touch points with superiors during the process to make sure the learner knows how they’re progressing and feel a sense of accountability. Assessment is a critical step in the learning process both in formal and online settings. Carefully consider the frequency of assessments, and ensure experts and admins are giving actionable feedback to the learner to encourage them to continue completing assessments and finding enjoyment in the material they’re learning.

Utilize Real World Situations and Value

Providing context for why learners are expected to take a course is critical to the usefulness of any learning program. Through the implementation of an online sales training initiative, look to indicate why particular modules and courses exist and what it applies to in the salesperson’s’ day-to-day activities. Often times, content will be self-indicative of the value, such as a successful demo call, but other times further context will be necessary to ensure learners have a complete grasp on why they’re learning a new skill or piece of knowledge.

Create a Cycle of Feedback and Collaboration

Online learning cannot be static and ensuring your sales team are getting the most useful information in the best possible way, always look to receive feedback and improve your content accordingly. From the outset, establish a forum for your sales teams to provide feedback on the learning material. You should also use your learning platform as a venue to answer and address questions and challenges faced by your sales team on an ongoing basis. Utilizing Docebo’s Coach & Share, for example, allows newer employees to ask questions and be notified when the expert posts an answer, the entire team can benefit and learn from these types of interactions.

Identify Your Skills Gaps

Docebo Perform helps learning and development professionals identify the specific skills that are missing within a sales team. Mapping out the skills and competencies of your team is critical to providing the right learning material the right format to enhance your team. By identify the skill gaps you’ll also be creating new opportunities and strategies for your sales teams to leverage, which will lead to more closed deals and increase the bottom line.

How to Track Your Online Sales Training Strategies

Boosting your revenue through a LMS or online sales training strategy requires a well thought-out measurement regime. In order to prove that a sales training strategy is working, there are steps that an L&D pro can take early on in order to measure, quantify and report on the success of the training initiative.

Measuring Lift

Setting sales-based benchmarks from the outset can help to identify the success and revenue boosts that can be attributed to your learning platform strategy. Keep in mind that there are multiple factors that can contribute to revenue shifts, including market or competitor changes. If you keep those factors in mind, you can begin to establish benchmarks that indicate exactly how much additional revenue being generated by enhanced online sales training.

Start by tracking the success of prospect calls performed by your sales team, the win rates of your sales teams, ability to hit quotas and the dollars sold per client. You can then take a monthly, quarterly and annual assessment to see the lift and attribute that lift to the sales training through qualitative analysis and conversations with your sales team and managers.

According to Louis Efron, there are five additional measurements that are needed to effectively gauge the ROI your teams are receiving from your sales training.

Pre-Training Assessments

Post-Training Assessments

Training Content Application

Training Content Retention

Sales Revenue Correlation

Using these five measurements can help L&D professionals to appropriate attribute boosted revenue to the sales training in place.

An additional strategy is particularly useful for organizations with sales team in multiple regions and offices. If possible, for a period of time, provide the sales training to a specific segment of your total sales team while withholding it from another. Creating a control group will help to measure if the online sales training effectively makes a difference in the performance of your sales team. An A/B test scenario will provide valuable information on the success and usefulness to your teams specifically and can help to avoid some of the market factors that could contribute to revenue changes.

Establishing benchmarks from the outset can help to set ROI expectations what success looks like in the context of your sales training initiative.

Remember to carefully consider what business results are important to your strategy. Is it market share, total revenue, revenue per deal or a combination. Thoroughly examine the objectives that your sales team and expected to meet and ensure that your sales training specifically address and assist in improving team members to achieve those objective.

And finally, take a close look at the sales activities of your sales teams are currently utilizing and have training content that enhancing those activities and generates compelling and useful knowledge centres that can utilized on an ongoing basis by your teams.

You sales teams are critical to boosting your organization’s revenue and ensuring that they’re equipped with the best tools and access to subject-matter experts can help to boost your overall revenue. Help your sales team hit their targets and measure the success of your L&D strategies with next-generation learning technology.

Learn how Docebo can boost your revenue through more effective sales training.

Start your 14-day free trial today!

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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The Connection Between Learning Content Playlists And The Psychology of Personalization

Amplify learner autonomy, boost knowledge retention and send engagement levels through the roof with user-generated playlists

We live in the age of personalization, a reality in which technology has enabled content of all forms to be manipulated and organized to reflect anyone’s tastes. That means the ability to organize your favorite tunes into customizable playlists (a la Spotify) or consume video that might match your interests based on content you’ve already watched (think YouTube/Netflix).

Personalization is not lost in the world of e-learning. Technology has evolved to enable the delivery of personalized learning content that learners don’t just need, but demand.

Technology, however, is only an enabler of personalization, one piece of a complicated puzzle completed only when you understand the psychology behind personalization.

Understanding The Psychology of Personalization

According to a study by the University of Texas, our desire for personalization is rooted in our innate desire for control and the power of choice. Given that technology has afforded people a stronger influence over the kinds of content they consume and the device that content is consumed on, L&D activities, in order to be most effective, must reflect that flexibility and respect the psychological desire for control.

After all, it’s become harder and harder to reach people. While you might think your learning content is top-notch, there’s no guarantee it will connect with your learners. Fortunately, L&D professionals are well aware of the importance of personalized content – 77% say personalized learning is vital to employee engagement, while 94% of businesses believe personalization is key to their success.

So, how do you ensure you’re producing and delivering learning content that connects with your learners, keeps them engaged, and encourages them to keep coming back for more? Start by a recognizing that getting the right content in front of the right people, at the right time is only half the battle. Follow the recognition and close the loop by handing off the control of how and when that content is consumed.

Use Content Playlists to Support Learning as it Happens

Effective e-learning today requires a learning technology that enables learning as it actually happens, and not exclusively by completing formally assigned courses or attending classroom lectures – modalities that disrupt a learner’s workflow and aren’t effective drivers of knowledge retention.

User-generated playlists aren’t only a great way to spark social learning within your organization. They also give learners an element of control over the learning content they consume, promote learner autonomy and improve the overall effectiveness of your organization’s learning programs. Playlists are collections of different learning assets, created by your learners for a variety of purposes. earners should be encouraged to share their playlists with their peers to increase social learning opportunities.

There are various ways that learners can go about creating playlists. One example may see a learner may pull together a collection of content that is of interest to them, but not specifically tied to their day-to-day tasks. Another examples might have a learner create a playlist that’s full of information that’s job-specific or related to jobs-to-be-done that they can share with others in their specific role. Both uses of playlists promote learner autonomy and increase social learning opportunities while also improving the effectiveness of an organization’s overall learning programs.

L&D admins are also encouraged to monitor user-generated playlists to improve their searchability when other users are looking for various assets. Additionally, admins can identify experts within their organizations through the playlists they create or utilize particularly useful playlists to create new catalogues to assist with initiatives such as onboarding or sales enablement. User-generated playlists are an excellent way for admins to gain insight into what courses are working and which courses or pieces of content can complement each other when distributed in a sequence or package.

For an in-depth view at how to manage and create playlists in Docebo, check out this Knowledge Base article.

Harness The Power of Personalization to Boost The Effectiveness of Your Learning Programs

User-generated playlists are a great way to encourage users to become more actively involved in your organization’s learning programs. The kinds of content and the variety of topics those playlists are developed from can also give you insight into what your learners are interested in.

Continual monitoring of those playlists may also give you the information you need to further personalize each learners’ experience with new content related to specific topics or jobs-to-be-done, helping you to encourage continuous learner development by delivering content they actually care about, that they’re willing consume at any time, and that they’ll share with their peers.

Give your learners the power of personalization with Docebo.

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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Why Your Learning Platform is The Key to Enabling Sales Performance

Use your learning platform to maximize the value of each and every buyer interaction.

While meeting revenue targets sits on the shoulders of each department across an organization, its sales staff are those people on the front lines, leveraging the insights and support from other departments to work with prospects and customer to uncover what they want, create solutions to their issues and ensure a smooth sales process.

After all, the better an organization’s sales team performs, the more people will know about that organization and what it does to continually expand an awareness that generates more and more business.

But without the right tools, your sales staff cannot perform – or develop. This is why sales enablement is so important to the ongoing success of any sales organization and that means getting the right information into the hands of sales people at exactly the right time.

Yet, sales enablement remains a common issue at enterprises around the world. As competition increases and revenue targets become more aggressive, the pressure on sales teams is stronger than ever, requiring the support of the L&D team to serve them the content, tools, knowledge and skills they need to be most effective.

Learning, particularly the way people learn, has changed.

Effective sales enablement in today’s business environment recognizes that sales training can’t depend solely on formal and event-based modalities, and instead must embrace a blended approach that combines formal, social and experiential learning to not only equip sales people with the right information, but also boost engagement and foster a healthy sense of competition among them.

Docebo’s exciting new whitepaper covers a number of insights, including:

Why your existing sales training strategy might not be working

Why your learning platform is the tool you need to boost sales enablement

How learning-in-the-flow-of work boosts knowledge retention and learner engagement

Uncovers the insights you need to turn your learning platform into a sales enablement machine!

DOWNLOAD NOW!

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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On-Demand Learning Isn’t Just a Buzzword, it’s a Necessity

Just-in-Time Learning is key to empowering your learners with the access to easily-digestible and effective content anytime, anywhere.

Companies around the world spend a lot of money every year on training, but much of their efforts are going to waste because their learners no longer connect with traditional learning modalities, which are compounding issues related to knowledge retention and a lack of time to complete training.

In fact, the average employees receives 60 hours of training annually, yet 70% of what they learn is lost within 24 hours – 90% within a week.

There’s a number of reasons this is happening, particularly the fact that humans are processing greater volumes of information than ever before, creating scenarios in which attention spans are also shorter than ever, having declined from 12 to about 8 seconds.

Fortunately, a new trend is developing in the world of corporate training – one that’s designed to empower learners with the knowledge they need when they absolutely need it, on whatever device they so choose.

Just-in-time learning is growing in popularity because of its flexibility and ability to connect with the needs and demands of today’s modern, highly-mobile tech-savvy workforce. It is a key component of the modern workplace learning experiences they seek, and when enabled by a next-gen learning platform, gives learners a way to access easily-digestible, actionable and effective learning anytime, anywhere.

Join Docebo’s James Breen, Sales Manager, August 22, as he dives into this exciting new world of on-demand learning with actionable insights to elevate your training activities, including:

How to deliver just-in-time knowledge

Why bite-sized learning is key to knowledge retention

How to give learners a way to access easily-digestible, actionable and effective learning anytime, anywhere

Learn how to work just-in-time learning into your L&D mix!

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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Why You Should Encourage Learner Autonomy

Encourage Learner Autonomy With A Next-Generation Learning Platform

On the road to learning success there are many paths to get to a final destination. Modern learners have a sea of options available to them that were not around when the concept of learner autonomy was first being discussed by Plato and Socrates. The opportunities for learners to chart their own course has never been more exciting.

Learners now have a vast array of human knowledge constantly available to them at their fingertips. The trick is to organize that knowledge and distribute it to learners when they need it, or at least have it sorted in some way that allows the learner to feel they’re able to easily access the information they need, when they need it. Online learning platforms give learners access to curated content necessary to skill-up on topics important to their day-to-day tasks. Learning platforms are also able to carry additional learning opportunities that exist outside of the scope of a learners “necessary” learning activity.

What is Learner Autonomy?

Learning autonomy flips the traditional model teacher/learner relationship on its head. Traditional learning focuses on a teacher driven classroom where the student follows the learning path. With learner autonomy, the traditional teacher is removed from the equation and it is up to the student to drive their own learning experience. It is more about a learner’s ability to take charge of their own learning. As opposed to being reliant on the teacher, the student takes responsibility for their own trajectory.

There are plenty of learning opportunities available to a modern learner through their learning platform and beyond on the wider web. It is important as a learning and development professional to carefully consider the roadmap and necessary touchpoints of information that you are setting out within learning modules. While encouraging learner autonomy can increase engagement, L&D admins need to ensure that the engagement is focused on the right content.

A traditional teacher is removed in the context of learner autonomy and the focal point is placed on the learner, but that doesn’t mean that there is no teacher. There is still an administrator in place to ensure that students are able to access and find the necessary information and maintains a learning environment that supports the development of the learner and their autonomy to seek out the content they want. Additionally, the tools L&D admins use help to provide the direction to learners that would typically be associated with a teacher in a classroom using tools like a syllabus.

Within a corporate learning environment, increasing learner engagement with learning materials alone can be a struggle. Placing an importance on autonomous learning can help to move that need by shifting the mindset of your learners.

Ultimately, learner autonomy means giving the learner a chance to take charge of their own development.

The Importance of Learner Autonomy

The autonomy of your learners to chart their own course is an invaluable asset when setting out a learning strategy. Autonomy in a lot of ways allows for the expression of creativity, and creativity can be pivotal to success. By providing your learners with the chance to make their own path, you are directly empowering the decisions they make and allowing them to creatively embark on their own learning adventure. Creativity also goes hand-in-hand with curiosity and forms the bedrock of what makes individuals hungry to learn. As said by the writer William Arthur Ward, “curiosity is the wick of the candle of learning.”

Consider the adult learning theory of Malcolm Knowles. According the theory, there are 6 key principles that are critical to educational impact.

Learners need to know why, what and how

Learners want to be autonomous and self-directing

Learners’ prior experience is an important consideration

Readiness depends on the learner’s needs

Orientation to learning tends to be problem-centred and contextual

Motivation to learn is an intrinsic value, with personal payoff.

The principles are intended to spark the creativity of the learners, but more importantly they are intended to ensure that the learning method used ultimately benefits the learner. Through autonomous learning, you are providing the framework to allow your learners to be self-directed. Importantly however, you can also effectively allow your learners to have an autonomous experience while also ensuring that they are spending their time learning the information necessary for organizational success.

This strategy also makes the learner the decision-maker when it comes to what they need to learn and how. Additionally, if your learning platform is set up in such a way that it provides streamlined access to important information that helps learners solve day-to-day problems, you will ensure that the orientation of your learning remains problem-oriented. That problem-orientation will derive mainly from the learner who has sought out the information themselves and therefore provided their own context as to why they are taking the course and utilizing the learning materials.

How to Promote Learner Autonomy

Promoting learner autonomy within your learning platform revolves primarily around promoting a sense of ownership. If an individual feels empowered to learn and understands that it is to their benefit to continue learning, then they will be inclined to do so. In order for a learner to take charge of their own learning, or have a desire to do so, a learning strategy must instill a sense of ownership within the learner. Without that ownership, a learner is highly unlikely to care enough to pursue learning on their own, regardless of how easily accessible their learning material is.

Take the concept of learning back to how we learn as children when we are naturally tuned to learning informally, or through our own direction. In our formative years, it is informal learning in new environments that keeps us revved and mentally stimulated, often without even realizing it.Taking that same approach, by providing courses, videos or learning materials that can be accessed by learners at any time but without formal instruction allow for learners to go at the own pace when it is useful for them.

Ways in Which an E-learning Platform Can Encourage Learner Autonomy

L&D admins professionals can leverage their learning platform to encourage and foster autonomous learning within an organization by:

Making Learning Available:This is foundationally the purpose in many ways of a learning management system (LMS). It is important that learning materials be made available to learners whenever and wherever they need or want to access the content.

Making Material Relevant: Setting up your learning platform to deliver engineering courses to your marketing department likely won’t serve the right purpose. Instead, ensure that your learning platform is efficiently organized to provide courses and content that speaks not only to an individual’s role but to specific issues and needs that might arise within a given position. Docebo’s Marketplace, including our recent integration with LinkedIn Learnhelps learners to dig into a vast range of learning opportunities.

Entertaining Content Wins: While not all course material can be “exciting”, it’s important to try to create a content engagement experience that is simply more than flipping through a slide deck. Increasingly, video has played a large role in its ability to increase learner stimulation. Providing social learning opportunities as well where the content can be discussed or shared with others can help to provide a sense of entertainment.

Employing a Flexible and Un-Rigid Structure: For learners to be autonomous, they need to be able to learn at their own pace on their own schedule. Administrators can encourage learner to take the time necessary to learn while also respecting the busy work days we all have.

Powering User-Generated Content: You likely have content experts within our organization, or after using a learning platform throughout a career, your employees might become the experts. Allow your learners to put their learning into practice not only on the job, but also by creating courses to be distributed throughout their team, department or company.

Making It Easy To Use: Perhaps most importantly, to encourage learner autonomy, a learning platform needs to be easy to use and be user intuitive. If a user cannot easily navigate the platform, they likely won’t go out of their way to find courses beyond those directly assigned to them with a specific purpose.

Learner autonomy can enhance a learning strategy and move the engagement needle. Docebo provides the ease of use, tools and autonomous experience that learner crave, while also providing learning and development professionals with the control necessary to ensure they’re able to effectively curate, organize and track the performance of their employees.

Fill your employees sails with incredible content and give them the freedom to chart their own course.

Start a 14-day trial today!

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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Go.Learn Makes Mobile Learning Better

Put The Power of The Docebo Learning Platform in The Hands of Your Learners, Literally, With Go.Learn

Docebo has some big news that we’re incredibly excited to announce: the latest version of our mobile app is here.

The truth is, not even “working on mobile” does the trick. Today, the threshold for the acceptance of mobile content is very high – much higher, in fact, than “regular” content shared on desktop devices. Mobile is used away from work, away from your desk, at home, or even in line at Starbucks. It needs to be desirable, accessible, frictionless, nice, and immediately useful, to encourage learners to come back for more.

Go.Learn, available now in the Apple and Google Play Stores, updating our Mobile LMS app with top-notch mobile technology with a major step forward towards a frictionless user experience, balanced with the capabilities of an innovative learning platform to augment the overall learner experience – on-the-go.

Access the Docebo Platform Directly From Your Mobile Device

The app has been designed specifically with the end-user in mind, giving them complete access to their Docebo learning platform from the device of their choosing, including iOS (iPhones, iPads) and Android-powered devices (phones and tablets).

Within the app, learners can easily attend courses, complete training materials, while taking advantage of Docebo’s social and experiential learning capabilities by viewing and sharing learning assets across different channels – no matter where they are, whenever they so choose, either online or offline.

Go.Learn allows certain types of learning objects, including SCORM, videos, slide presentation, files, and HTML pages to be downloaded, played and tracked offline. Full courses can also be downloaded for viewing at the user’s leisure.

Docebo offers your learners a continuous learning experience. Learners can take training courses while offline, and their progress is automatically tracked and synced with your learning platform when back online to promote continuous, uninterrupted learning experiences.

When a learner launches their existing Docebo Mobile LMS app, they will be prompted to download the new Go.Learn app. On the first page, users will be asked to provide the address for their organization’s Docebo learning platform in a text box, then press proceed to the login page. They will be asked to type in their email address and password. They can also flag the option to “Remember Me on this device” to avoid logging in each time the app is launched.

Go.Learn also supports Single Sign On (SSO), with SAML/OKTA or Google integrations to login to the app easily, with one click.

“35% of learners don’t have access to content that works on mobile”

– Brandon Hall Group

More than a third of the learner population don’t have access to a mobile learning solution that works. Docebo has invested a lot of time and research to develop a mobile-first solution designed to meet the needs and wants of the modern learner. Go.Learn is expandable, modern and scalable, adapting to your organization’s learning needs as you see fit to help you create the best mobile learning experience.

Go.Learn in Action

The Docebo Learning Platform, at its core, is built on a blended learning approach designed to bring together the best aspects of formal, social and experiential learning. Alongside our core learning management system, Learn, and our Coach & Share module encourage learners to share their knowledge and ask questions, to help you as the learning administrator identify the subject-matter experts within your ranks and elevate the quality of your learning materials.

Go.Learn puts that power into learners’ hands – literally. Consider the following example:

Kevin is an antenna technician. One day, he’s out on a service call to fix an issue with an antenna that he’s seen many times before. The other technicians can’t seem to get the fix right. After seeing the issue time and time again, Kevin’s developed a quick-fix and decides he’s going to solve this problem once and for all.

He pulls out his phone, logs into his Go.Learn app, and shoots a 15-second video that shows the defective part and his easy and inventive way to fix it without changing the part. With the click of a single button, he makes the video accessible to the entire field tech team and their managers.

Mark, the company’s resident antenna expert, receives a notification that Kevin has uploaded a new video the company’s Docebo learning platform via Go.Learn. He watches it, adding a few notes for all technicians to reference if they ever encounter the problem.

A few days later, Sonny, another technician, watches the video and asks a question. Mark, along with two other technicians, answer the question, giving their insights into the solution. The video, edit and curation, and Q&A thread is published to the new ‘Antenna101’ channel in Docebo (and Go.Learn), becoming a valuable asset for the entire technician community within the organization.

Two days later, a new hire Tyler comes across the same problem that Kevin shot his video to solve. Tyler takes out his phone, searches for ‘antenna defects’, and immediately finds Kevin’s video, Mark’s notes and the Q&A thread, giving him the knowledge he needs to fix the problem on the spot. He marks the video asset as ‘Best Answer’ and gives it a thumbs up, making the video even easier to find for other technicians.

But this story doesn’t end there. A couple of months later, Tina, one of the company’s learning administrators, is tasked with creating a new set of courses for antenna repairs. She gets to work, collecting different assets about different kinds of antennas, including Kevin’s quick-fix video.

She picks the best content based on performance and rating (thumb ups, best answers, most viewed, etc.), building out five full courses over the spans of a few hours, without taking any time away from internal subject-matter experts – the only source of content until now. Specific content units that need detailed and approved technical information are completed by running a content peer review process that only takes a few hours of SME time.

Create Customized Mobile Learning Experiences

For learning administrators, the original Mobile LMS app settings section is deprecated and will not affect the configuration of Go.Learn. While there are no admin capabilities within the mobile app itself (yet), administrators can manage the complete mobile learning experience in the desktop version of the Docebo platform.

Configuring Go.Learn is easy, requiring only a few clicks to manage the look and feel of their learners’ mobile experience, including the ability to white-label the mobile learning platform with your organization’s logo and colours.

To learn more about the exciting functionalities of Go.Learn and the action L&D admins need to take to roll out the new application while keeping their mobile learning experience working seamlessly, check out this Docebo Knowledge Base article.

Visit the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store to download Go.Learn to your iOS or Android device now!

Empower your learners the learning platform they need – and want.

START A FREE 14-DAY TRIAL OF DOCEBO TODAY

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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Your Guide To LMS Integrations

Your guide to all the necessary learning management system (LMS) integrations

Evolving a corporate learning strategy requires careful consideration, research and internal discussions. Modern learning platforms are designed to ensure corporate learning strategies are able to best work within the schedules and constraints faced by an organization’s work environment. Learning Management System (LMS) integrations are an important consideration when researching and adopting a new technology into an organization’s tech, and for a learning platform to perform efficiently, integrations are necessary to save both time and energy.

What’s The Big Deal With LMS Integrations

Chances are, if you’re considering a learning platform, you’re already using a handful of other technologies to help employees do their jobs and communicate with each other, manage different teams, or gather and store important data. It’s important when introducing a new technology to an organizational ecosystem that the platforms “speak” to each other in a way that makes everyone’s jobs easier and more efficient.

Taking a look at the various stacks of cloud-based services in use across an organization, you can quickly see that integrations are an important part of increasing workflows and efficiencies. According to Scott Brinker of the Chief Marketing Technologist Blog, the average enterprise uses 91 different cloud services in their marketing stacks alone. According to the same report, HR departments use 90 different services, and up to 70 cloud tools are used for collaboration across departments. Granted, Brinker’s definition of “cloud services” is broad, even encompassing social media channels like Facebook, but the fact remains that organizations have embraced the idea of using massive tech stacks.

LMS Integrations Are Important to Your Business

When considering a learning management system, carefully consider what technologies are already used in your organization, and what connections will be necessary between your new technologies and those that are already in place. With that understood, you can begin to examine the integrations that are currently available within the market. That initial internal research on what’s already in place will give you the knowledge necessary to ask the right questions about products you will want to integrate with your learning platform.

In the discovery phase it’s important to carefully consider the types of integrations you’ll need to make your online training platform as useful as possible. A learning platform can and should be integrated into the many different applications already in use to share data and drive your businesses workflow.

Important Integrations with Learning Management Systems

Learning platform integrations add value to both the administrator and the learner. There are various integrations available to learning and development administrator, but it’s important to consider some of the most important apps and tools.

Customer Relationship Management Integrations

Your learning platform should be able to integrate seamlessly with the customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Learning initiatives are crucial for improving your sales teams and increasing their results. Integrating a LMS with your CRM can greatly increase training adoption rates and allow you to fine-tune sales and product training while bringing together valuable shared data for better results on both fronts.

Seamless CRM integrations help to ensure that your training directly corresponds and speaks to your sales team working prospects down the funnel. Docebo’s Salesforce integration, for example, combines your CRM workflows with learning activities and tasks to improve employee’ and partner performance, as well as sales channels operations to increase the value of an organization’s Salesforce investment.

Communications Integrations

Communication is always a challenge, particularly across global enterprise businesses, with several technologies available, including online chat platforms, email systems and web conferencing tools. Iterations of these tools can be integrated into a learning platform to streamline communications between learners, teachers and administrators. Integrating a web conferencing tool into a LMS creates a cost-effective way to execute formal, instructor-led training, while creating more integrated social learning opportunities and communication between experts and learners.

Docebo seamlessly integrates with a number of popular web conferencing tools. Connect your learning experiences with GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, GoToTraining, Adobe Connect, WebEx, BigBlueButton, Teleskill and BlueJeans to name but a few.

e-Commerce Integrations

If you’re looking to generate revenue, or even pay for courses through your learning platform, e-commerce integrations are an absolute must. Make sure that your LMS supports multiple languages to ensure you have the strongest market reach possible.

E-commerce management tools, such as Shopify, allow you to create a “storefront” in your LMS to simplify elearning sales. With the right integrations, you can easily create professional and secure storefronts and refocus your attention on creating the best training materials possible.

Single Sign-On (SSO) Integrations

How many passwords do you use everyday? Hopefully, your passwords are saved within your browser or password vault, making it easier to remember them all. Your learning platform should come ready to assist with SSO integrations. Docebo’s SSO integrations include, LDAP, OKTA, AUTH0, OPEN ID CONNECT and SAML 2.0/ ADFS. These integrations allow you to easily connect your learning platform with your Google Apps and social media platforms, such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Additionally, The LDAP integration allows you to import LDAP user bases into your LMS and keep them synced.

The integration of SSO apps is intended to get your learning content into the hands of your learners faster. Along with the increase in access and efficiency, SSO apps also importantly apply an additional level of security through seamless authentication of identities.

Content Authoring Tools

Course design can be a challenging, time consuming exercise. There are options available to help L&D professionals create beautiful and engaging courses. Authoring tool integrations can take some of the pain out of the process. Docebo’s authoring tool integrations include Elucidat or Lectora, giving you an easy to create elegant learning assets.

There’s no longer a need to struggle with standards like SCORM and xAPI when it comes to integrating your internally developed content. Instead, with just a few clicks, you can add learning assets to your LMS, while leveraging the advanced reporting features within your learning platform.

Integrations and Efficiency

Learning platform integrations provide a tremendous opportunity to increase connections and seamless workflows across an organization. They can be the difference maker when it comes to profits by cutting administrative costs and creating a culture of learning. Simplify your learning processes, while making it easier and more fun for learners with sophisticated learning platform integrations.

Download our free 14-day trial to explore what’s possible.

START YOUR 14-DAY TRIAL TODAY!

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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Your Learning Platform – Your Sales Enablement Machine

Keep an eye out for Docebo’s upcoming whitepaper that will outline the strategies you need to boost sales performance with your learning platform.

The way people learn is changing, a shift driven by a combination of the distractions and general busy-ness alive and well in today’s business environments. Yet, many organizations’ learning strategy have remained the same, and are not reflective of the times or the evolving needs of their employees, customers, and partners. And this lack of action is having a direct impact on their bottom lines.

The ultimate goal of any organization is to generate revenue, but doing so can be a challenge if its sales staff isn’t motivated to push the envelope and drive performance. Many sales teams juggle similar challenges, specifically those related to the fact that most learning activities remain rooted in formal and event-based training. Sales teams end up being served unstimulating, poorly-organized content that may not even be relevant to issues they’re dealing with daily, and there’s zero post-training reinforcement.

Fortunately, the solution to these ongoing issues is actually quite simple, and involves equipping your sales teams with the tools they need to succeed and enable further growth.

While meeting revenue targets sits on the shoulders of all of those within the organization, a business’s sales staff are on the front lines, leveraging the insights of other departments to secure new customers and keep existing ones happy. It is therefore imperative that your sales staff is trained effectively to ensure they’re communicating your product effectively to prospects in the field.

The better your organization’s sales team performs, the more people will know about your organization and what it does – an awareness that generates more business.

What is Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement, which means getting the right information into the hands of sales people at the right time, remains a common issue at enterprises around the world. As competition increases and revenue targets grow more aggressive, the pressures on sales staff to perform are stronger than ever.

Sales enablement gives sales staff the content, tools, knowledge and skills they need to be effective. This includes up-to-date product information, sales best practices, how to build loyal customer relationships, effective communication skills, time management and the art of persuasion.

While the tools needed to deliver these skills have changed, too few organizations have leveraged them to improve their sales enablement activities. As your organization introduces new products, new customer demands come with them (plus new sales reps), so there will always be learning gaps to fill, demanding more ways to enable your sales teams. In the age of technology, it’s easier than ever to make learning more convenient and, most importantly, more effective. And the right learning management system (LMS) is your avenue to sales enablement success.

Why Your Existing Sales Training Strategy Isn’t Working

It depends too heavily on dull and overly-complex content. The goal of any sales training initiative is fairly obvious: to increase sales. But we must remember that change is never automatic. Encouraging sales staff to adjust the behaviours they know well will never be an easy job, but is possible when done so with the right tools alongside engaging and valuable learning content.

Sales staff struggle to retain valuable knowledge. There’s far too much reliance on formal and event-based training without much effort on reinforcement afterward.

How do you really know if the content served in these formal and event-based settings is actually connecting with sales people in a way that they can take it and apply that information in the field to close more sales?

To maximize ROI on your sales training initiatives, consider using a blended approach using a variety of learning modalities (formal, social, experiential) that consist of facilitated reinforcement, sales coaching by frontline managers, and on-demand reinforcement enabled by your learning platform.

Your Learning Platform is The Tool to Boost Sales Enablement

The modern enterprise needs training opportunities that empower their sales teams to ensure they meet their goals as they evolve. A modern LMS can bring these learning strategies to life, empowering your sales teams to achieve (and exceed) their business goals.

Your learning platform helps you reach your entire sales teams, providing critical information on-the-go, whenever they may need it most, while making learning fun. Tap into the well-known competitive nature of successful sales teams with learning content that leverages gamification, bite-sized video, inputs from internal subject-matter experts, within a learning environment based on models such as the 70:20:10 framework.

Here’s how:

Tap into their competitive sides. Gamify your sales training activities with with leaderboards, points, badges and rewards to inspire some healthy competition within, motivating staff to learn more, retain more valuable information, and deploy that information faster. When your learning content is designed effectively and is relevant to their needs, you’re equipping sales teams with the skills and knowledge they need to drive sales performance for the organization.

Establish brand message consistency. In many cases, sales teams are the face of an organization. They’re the people on the front lines meeting with prospects and existing customers. Their personalities reflect that of the organization and its purpose, ultimately having a powerful influence on the way people perceive your business.

This means that every sales representative must have a consistent understanding of the business, its culture, its products – and how they should be interacting with customers. There may, however, be issues getting that information into the hands of all of those within the sales organization, as they may be located in different cities, or even countries. Getting them all together in a single location isn’t the easiest feat, nevermind an expensive one.

Fortunately, your learning platform allows salespeople to access the same up-to-date content, no matter where they are in the world. Your learning platform is their portal to live product demonstrations and virtual ILT sessions with company higher-ups,which can be absorbed from their own desk, couch and car.

Up-to-date product knowledge training when they need it most. Healthy organizations are those that evolve with its product to emerge as leaders within their industry. But a product is only as good the sales person’s ability to sell it. That means you must be able to provide product updates to sales people in the field on the fly, outlining new features, benefits and applications. Ongoing product knowledge training is absolutely critical to any sales role, but they need a tool that enables it at the point of need. Your learning platform is the most effective way to do so easily and effectively, while saving sales teams’ time and improving their product knowledge.

Enable learning on-the-go. With a learning platform that has mobile compatibility, you’re giving your sales staff a way to learn no matter where they are, on whatever device they choose. Give them access to your library of learning content, best practices and essential product information digitally whether they’re in the parking lot before a client meeting or their morning train ride into the office.

Your Sales Enablement Machine

When the right learning technology is paired with the right content, you can turn your L&D activities into a sales enablement machine. By developing configurable learning experiences with learning technology, you’re equipping your sales people with the tools and the knowledge they need to drive performance and boost revenues – and that’s a good thing for everyone along the learning chain.

Keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks for Docebo’s latest whitepaper that will uncover the knowledge you need to empower your sales people with the right mix of learning technology and content, and how you can turn your e-learning platform into a sales enablement machine.

In the meantime, download our whitepaper, published in partnership with the Brandon Hall Group, How Learning Can Drive Sales Performance. This exciting and wildly popular paper covers a number of insights, including:

Statistics on the most efficient ways to conduct sales training

The importance of knowledge sharing

Closing existing gaps in sales training

Why sales training is important

New sales training trends

So what are you waiting for? Enable your sales teams and boost performance (and revenues) today.

DOWNLOAD NOW!

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Your Learning Platform – Your Sales Enablement Machine original post at Docebo

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robertdinkins · 7 years ago

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Gamification Elements That Rocket Boost Learner Engagement

Encourage competition while providing tangible incentives to drive performance.

For years, we’ve heard about applying gamification elements within the e-learning industry. Learning and development professionals are constantly looking for the best ways to increase employee engagement in learning initiatives and activities. There are plenty of tactics in the L&D toolbelt, but it’s difficult to find one that speaks to people on an incentive-based level the way that gamification does.

The desire to win is a part of the of the human condition, occasionally even referred to as “last place aversion”. Given the chance to see how we rank against each other, most people will take it as an opportunity to increase performance to achieve a higher position. When considering an implementation strategy however, it is important be very conscious that gamification fosters interactivity and fun, not added stress. Gamification elements should be used to foster enjoyment and excitement, taking a close look at your employees and what makes them tick to better inform L&D professionals on what exactly would entail a “fun” learning experience.

Beyond winning, we all love to be rewarded for our work and recognized for the effort we put in. With gamification elements, we can implement incentives that encourage competition, while also providing tangible awards for performance, resulting in increased learner engagement and fun.

What is Gamification

Gamification is the process of adding motivational elements within a learning framework or system to increase user engagement based upon sound game theory and game mechanics. In slightly simpler terms, gamifying the learning experience could include leaderboards, badges, high scores, and competitions with announcements of winners.

At its core, gamification has four key elements:

A challenge or a goal that establishes what a person needs to accomplish to win

Obstacles or impediments which need to be overcome to achieve the goal

Incentives or rewards that users receive as they overcome obstacles and objectives

Game rules that define users’ interaction with the game

The implementation of gamification elements can include the use of badges and points that are then used to provide the “rules” that dictate where a learner will fall on the leaderboard and how they can increase their position.

Gamification Elements

The list of elements that can gamify your learning experience is extensive. Some of the gamification techniques such as Leaderboards, points and badges, and rewards can entice and engage your learners, but it’s important to know that there’s plenty elements available for consideration.

Gamified UK has a great periodic table of gamification elements that provides a great look at how many different elements there are that can gamify a learning experience.

Badges and Points

There have been some recent doubts cast on the effectiveness of gamification elements, particularly the use of digital badges as rewards to learners. The theory was tested and published in an early 2018 study, “To Game or Not to Gamify” by Elias Kyewski and Nicole C. Krämer in Computers and Education. Their research indicated that badges alone were not a sufficient motivator to driving measurable change in the performance. However, the research focused exclusively on “badges” as a motivation tool and didn’t examine a full suite of gamification elements that could be used to create multiple points of encouragement to foster engagement.

In a study by Karl Erenli and Austrian researcher contended, “Gamification is proven to have an enormous impact on today’s learners.” He added that one specific benefit of gamification is the extension of learner engagement and the longevity of their productivity: “A student who is interested in the lesson or course taught will be a more productive learner. Games can be a great tool to help students stay engaged.”

There are different elements available to ensure the success of a gamification strategy. These elements can include leaderboards, a chance to receive points or rewards, and the opportunity to be recognized for committing the time and effort. According to Professor B.J. Fogg, an experimental psychologist at Stanford University, there are three elements that must converge in order for a change in behavior to occur: motivation, ability, and trigger. Gamification elements change the behaviour that instigates a neglect of learning opportunities and improves the engagement of learners and increases their excitement to engage with the content.

Successful gamification elements work because they specifically address those three key elements:

The give users the motivation to do something (the chance to win, receive rewards or gain recognition)

The give users the ability to carry out a task – by facilitating it, or breaking each task into bite-size chunks, increasing the perceived capability of the user

They give the user a trigger or cue to complete the action

These three key elements can help to provide a gamification strategy that works in the long term and helps to achieve a company’s learning objectives.

Leaderboards

Leaderboards are a great place to start when considering how to implement gamification elements into your learning strategy. While they can’t exist without the points system, having a leaderboard presents a public place for recognition and helps you to consider how you want your points/badges system to work.

Simply “introducing” the leaderboard isn’t enough. There are steps you need to take to ensure that your learners understand the purpose of the leaderboard and how to climb it. Below are a few steps you can take to ensure a smooth implementation of your leaderboard.

Provide clear instructions on how to rank-up

Give newcomers a fair chance: try creating a different leaderboard for each group of learners or training courses

Make it a social experience: employees are more likely to engage if they know who they’re competing against and can share their success more widely

Include an opt-out for employees who don’t want to participate: leaderboards can be stressful at times so it is always best to make them voluntary

The importance and visibility of a leaderboard need to be established within an organization and with the utilizing teams for it to make an impact. That means when launched, admins need to find a way to communicate that the leaderboard exists. A periodic email that highlights who is leading and finding a way to celebrate the leaders can help to increase excitement and engagement. Leaderboards are fantastic, but providing a tangible reason for people want to be the top makes a substantial difference.

Collecting Badges and Points

The earlier research discussed indicated that badge-type elements alone have been studied and shown not to be enough to encourage a learner. These gamification elements are necessary however for determining what exactly elevates learners to the top of the leaderboards. The Docebo platform allows for the issuing of badges and points for the completion of certain tasks. Learning admins can assign a value to points based on task completion within the learning platform which can then be the system used to set the scale behind the leaderboard.

Scoring systems are a great way to ignite learner engagement and excitement. The Docebo gamification app makes it easy to create badges for the programs within your learning ecosystem. A badge is like a medal your users will gain every time they complete a particular action in the platform. Badges usually have points that are given to the user along with the badge, and points can be turned into coins that learners use in the Rewards Marketplace.

The collection of badges and points can also be amplified by adopting elements found in modern online gaming communities. Increasingly, video game developers are setting weekly online challenges for their users to encourage them to come back and play regularly. Epic Games’ Fortnite, one of the hottest video games currently on the market, employs a weekly challenge strategy that offers their users the opportunity to gain extra experience points to level up their in-game characters or unlock special items. The challenges encourage users to return regularly to play the game or miss out of rewards that other players will be earning. A similar element-based approach can be used in a learning gamification strategy by offering special one-week-only badges, a “double your points earned”a week or a special “earn 5000 points this week to get a free day off”.

For challenge-based elements to be useful in a gamification strategy you need to make sure that the rewards for completing the challenge are tailor-made to address the desires of your target audience. Research from Stephanie Hermann of Reutlingen University indicated that challenges within gamified applications cannot be generalized and need to be diversified on a regular basis to ensure they remain exciting for your user. According to Hermann, “one must consider the context of the underlying application and the user’s state within the player life cycle to sustain user engagement”.

Providing varying challenges, and most importantly differing rewards for completing those challenges will keep learners engaged longer.

Rewarding User Behaviour

A rewards system within your gamification tool helps to elevate the bragging rights from reigning supreme on a leaderboard into real-world items.

Gamification can be used to make learning really pay off, and not just in terms of career progression and growth. People are often more willing to participate and compete if there are great rewards to be won. The Docebo Gamification App features the Rewards Marketplace, allowing organizations to reward users providing an increased incentive to come back regularly.

The Docebo Rewards Shop allows users to spend the points they’ve earned through completing their learning objectives and unlock gift cards, cash, goodies or even extra vacation days. Superadmins are in charge of distributing the rewards and are notified and prompted to approve, reject or message the learner requesting the reward. That gives learning administrators the control over their rewards system necessary, but more importantly, it provides the opportunity to really track and engage in a positive way with learners utilizing the platform.

Map Competencies With Badges

One element that is important to consider when establishing your gamification strategy is mapping points and badges to specifically applicable competencies. Your gamification strategy is going to increase the engagement of your learners by tapping into their desires to win and the ability to turn their learning into immediate real-world rewards, but L&D admins still have the job of mapping those skills learned into visible and usable workplace skills and competencies.

For example, if you have a senior position that requires strong interpersonal communication skills and an in-depth knowledge of a particular product feature, you could assign a badge to each of the courses that correspond with those skills. Once a learner completes the courses associated with those competencies they will be awarded the badge and their profile will reflect their new abilities and employer will have an easier ability to see that they have the knowledge necessary to take on new responsibilities and career advancements. If your learners know that the public display of their badges can act as a signal for career progression they will be more inclined to take the initiative to work through new courses.

The motivation for professional development is apparent in report after report, according to Robert Half, 21% of survey respondents indicated that they are looking for organizations who value them as a resource and invest in their career progression. When trying to fill vacant positions, most companies look “inside” and having competencies mapped through a system will help to motivate employees and provide an easier time to hiring managers when looking to see who have the skills they’re looking for within the organization.

Gamification for the Win

As a strategy, gamification elements within your learning platform experience will encourage your learners to invest their time in the opportunities available to them. By tapping into people’s desires to be at the top, and be recognized for their achievements you can increase the engagement in your learning programs. With the Docebo learning management system (LMS), you’ll be able to utilize the right gamification elements to encourage the engagement of your learners.

Most importantly, L&D professionals want to be able to see if their learning strategies are actually making a difference increasing the competencies within their organization and through an efficient mapping strategy, learners’ increased engagement can be translated into time saved and promotions to more senior job opportunities.

Gamify your learning strategy today with Docebo!

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