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How to Establish Company Culture During Online Sales Training:Developing a Foundation for Better Sales Staff Retention


MindTickle enables businesses, trainers and individuals to

transform their existing online content (PPTs, Videos, documents)

into an interactive learning experience.

MindTickle engages the learner and makes learning efficient,

effective and delightful through a unique combination of game

mechanics (points, medals, badges and leaderboard) and social

tools (profiles, comments, chat and walls).

The platform has been globally adopted by several Fortune

500 customers, and over 55,000 users have benefited from

MindTickle products.

MindTickle has global sales presence with headquarters in the

United States, and development / operations team in India.

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“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”

Benjamin Franklin






Author

Mohit GargMindTickle Co-Founder @mindticklemindtickle.com

Mohit has a diverse work experience spanning across 14

years and four continents.

Prior to co-founding MindTickle, he was a Director in

PwC’s management consulting practice at New York, and

has been a senior member of product teams.

He was awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Startup

Leadership Program (SLP) in 2012. Mohit holds an MBA

degree from ISB and MSEE from Stanford University.






Table of Contents






The Connection Between Sales Education, Retention & Company Culture

Company culture and sales staff education have

become BFFs, and the fact that they pack more punch

together has been a well-ignored detail for at least a

century. Dale Carnegie unwrapped the pair’s power 100

years ago, showing that engaged employees are 202%

more productive than bored ones.

Companies with a reputation for retaining star sales

people over the course of many years understand that

quality training and a winning culture is a major reason

employees stay on the job.

Ask any human resources professional and they will

agree that these factors, more so than money, is the key

to employee retention.






Google-EDU’s teaching techniques were overhauled

when co-founder, Larry Page, took over two year training

program—a revamp that was so steeped in pizzazz that

it became the theme of the Hollywood comedy, The

Internship.

If you walked into Googleplex, you’d see hundreds of

young techies learning as a team while playing in a zany

high-tech playground.

You might think that Larry’s lesson lies in adding a few

wacky concepts and animated games to your training

videos, and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but Google

has something more important to teach: The only way

to develop corporate culture in your online sales training

program is by understanding what company culture

means.

The most likely reason behind tanking culture

development is a failure to define it.

First You Must Define Your Company’s Culture






Why should you care about culture?

Culture is the values, mindsets, and behaviors that constitute an

environment conducive to success. Culture is the glue that binds

your business and is a fundamental motivator for your staff.

Anyone who has had the opportunity to work for several businesses

will say that they can recognize tangible differences in culture. That

tangible feeling can be an inspiration to a sales team or it can be

suffocating.

What’s more, according to Paul Meehan of Bain and Company,

culture motivates your staff to do the right thing rather than

the easy thing. In the Bain survey he cites, “81% of executives

agreed that a company without a winning culture was doomed to

mediocrity.”

If you don’t offer some elements of your corporate culture in

ongoing sales education, you’re missing a huge opportunity to

make the information stick and resonate. Simply put, it’s time to

step into the social learning renaissance with the kind of corporate

culture even Google would envy.

What is Culture and How Does This Help Your Sales Team?






Assessing Cultural Fit

Many sales managers make the mistake of hiring based on resumes without considering cultural fit.

Cultural fit is not an easy thing to assess in an interview. Jim Roddy from ere.net says that: “determining

a cultural fit isn’t as simple as describing your work environment and then asking the candidate for a

thumbs up.”

In fact, you don’t want to offer details about your culture until near the end of your interview process.

Roddy says: “Don’t tip your hand by giving information that will coach them on how to answer your

initial questions.”

Take a step back and consider your culture and the attributes that make your business wonderful.

Consider how you can reinforce this in the hiring process. Ask questions about your candidate’s

experience with company culture and how they’ve dealt with any potential challenges that corporate

culture may have presented.

From the initial advertisement of the sales role, to the phone screen, to the face to face interview, take

advantage of opportunities to screen for fit with the culture of your team ensuring that you are setting

your new sales reps up for success.

Hiring Salespeople That Are a Fit For Your Culture






How to Build A Winning Sales Culture With Online Sales Training

Building a Great Sales Culture

Culture helps to make every unit of your sales staff a core part of your future. When your online

sales training programs urge your staff members to pitch cool ideas, your foundation for innovation

strengthens.

Think about your experience with sales training and how participation made you feel. Did you feel special?

Did you feel included? Did you feel valuable? Let’s explore how to use culture building to increase sales

staff performance.

Before your new sales reps start you can begin laying down the bricks of corporate culture that will

eventually lead to your most profit driving sales team yet. With online sales training, you can start

educating the new hires about the company, competition, customers, technologies and policies as soon

as they sign that offer letter. A faster onboarding process means that your sales team will be productive

more quickly.






Facilitate Communication

1. Encourage Dialogue

Encourage dialogue by giving your sales team online access to each other for question and answer

sessions. Connect your new sales staff to more seasoned sellers by facilitating online social interactions

between the new hires community across the various campuses and geographies.

By connecting the newest members of your sales team to your seasoned sales reps, you are

demonstrating the sales culture with the people that are at the very core of your culture. In addition,

you are building your sales leaders of the future.

Selling is emotional. Selling takes energy. And many salespeople need to be sold on the greater good of

what they’re doing. They need to understand that they are contributing to a bigger picture.

You can even have them come up with their own creed by just capturing their responses in a group

setting to the questions “What do we believe in and why are we here?” Salespeople need vision and it’s

the job of leadership to help that vision come alive.






Assess Sales Performance and Manage Low Performers

2. Evaluate Performance

How are you evaluating the performance of your sales team? Usually sales managers know when a salesperson is

underperforming within the first two months. However, it may take a while for sales managers to let that person

go.

Remember underperforming sales reps can be damaging to your sales team culture. It is important to address

this before they become a major cost to your business. Online sales training programs are just another way for

you to stay on top your sales team’s progress.

Most good salespeople need and welcome regular accountability and partnership. Spending regular one-on-one

time with your people not only gives you a chance to mentor and train with them; it shows that what they do is

important and that you care about their success.

Part of the reason why sales coaching has become so popular in recent years is because companies are stretched

thin by tight budgets and managers are not able to spend enough individual time with their people so they seek

outside reinforcement. Start recognizing top leaders in a big public way. One of the fastest ways we get results

for clients is helping them create an incentive plan for driving activity.

While bonuses usually have to stay tied to production, you can offer creative affordable incentives to boost

activity. Top performing sales reps are competitive. With the right culture in place they will want to pursue the

recognition.






Reinforce Systems and Processes

3. Practice Makes Perfect

As a sales manager it is your job to enable your team with

the tools and training they need to be successful. It is

important to establish a sales culture with defined processes

to help your team grow. This is critical for new hires but it is

also important to deliver ongoing sales training to your team

to reinforce good sales habits.

The only way to improve is to practice. With ongoing

online sales training, you can make sure that your team is

constantly improving. Measure the top five daily revenue

producing activities of every salesperson. Whatever system

you use is fine, but the data is essential for monitoring

because numbers can tell a story.

Sales is and always will be a numbers game. Whoever

speaks with the most qualified prospects in the shortest

time has the best chance of success. With strong processes

in place you will increase activity and your sales will grow!






Conclusion

Interactive training infused with culture wakes up tired minds,

increasing engagement and learning potential. Gone are the

days when training was about teaching alone. Now reinforcing

your culture it is a way to establish the kind of sales team your

business needs.

Graphics and computer companies have made corporate culture

seem to be about installing nap pods and water slides into your

office space, but the reality is a touch more practical. Culture

is a conglomeration of the behavioral norms and values that

underline your company’s collective personality.

At MindTickle we are here to help your company create a

remarkable online sales training program where your culture

shines through. An investment in infusing culture into your

ongoing sales training will increase your staff retention rate.

With MindTickle you can take your current sales training

materials and convert them into an online format that is

convenient, flexible, and saves you money in preparing training

events.






Request a demo of MindTickle's online training

software. See MindTickle's learning software in

action! We'll show you how to effectively engage

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