We deal with a lot of sales people here, so 75% of our online training is centered on Sales topics. While I've never worked in sales, I've known quite a few sales people and talk to them everyday through the job (they call me with their tech problems). The one thing I've noticed is that almost all of them would rather be selling than going through training.
At an in-class training sessions I visited, whenever there was a break, EVERY SINGLE cellphone or Blackberry would be pulled out. And that's understandable, because... they're Sales People. To be successful you have to A.B.C. -- Always Be Celling. I know it should be A.B.S., but ABC is so Alec Baldwin.
Anyway, asking these people to spend a day in a "classroom" is a feat. But on top of that, we're asking them to spend 30 minutes on each module (across 7 or 8 modules) even BEFORE they come to class. I just don't see how this is effective training. An idea that I had was to cut the modules WAY down, and only put in the absolute most important stuff... then put all the specific info into a Wiki style HTML page. That way, if they want to learn more, they can. But if they don't, we don't force them.
Of course, getting totally away from the module system would be best... but baby steps.
No comments:
Post a Comment