You’re a sales enablement professional based in Houston. Your CRO is in Charlotte. Your regional sales managers are in Detroit, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Philadelphia. Your sellers are scattered across the states.
Your company is releasing a new product next quarter. What’s your plan for training the team?
Many companies, regardless of size, find themselves in this position. That’s why virtual sales enablement is crucial for businesses adapting to remote and hybrid work models. You can train, support, and empower your sales team by leveraging virtual tools and platforms, even when team members are geographically dispersed.
Virtual sales enablement allows you to develop and deliver centralized sales resources, on-demand sales training, and real-time collaboration. Developing a virtual sales enablement strategy will help ensure your sales professionals have the knowledge, skills, and support they need to succeed in the remote selling environment.
Benefits of Virtual Sales Training
As the name suggests, virtual sales training is instruction beyond face to face. It can take the form of a video conference where the facilitator and sellers are in separate locations, or it can be done in a simulated environment, using eLearning platforms.
Despite the distance the name implies, virtual training sessions can be personalized and compelling. The facilitator and the trainees are generally united via video conferencing technology, allowing participants to ask questions, chat, send messages, and receive feedback in real time.
There are several other benefits of virtual sales training, including:
- Flexibility: You can fit training into busy schedules.
- Convenience: You don’t have to deal with the headaches and expense of travel and other logistics to train.
- Interactivity: You can use digital technology to incorporate animations, visuals, polls, and other engaging content into lessons.
- Concision: You can parse content into multiple bite-sized elements to keep the attention of an increasingly distracted workforce.
- Sustainability: You can reinforce sales training with practice simulations, quizzes, and flash drills to sustain learning.
Why Virtual Training Is Effective
While training a remote audience may seem like an invitation for distraction, virtual training offers many ways to hold sellers’ attention. A virtual format ensures a singular focus on what’s being presented on screen (with tools to ensure everyone is eyes forward and ears tuned).
The ability to queue questions—either through virtual hand-raising or through a chat window—can keep distractions to a minimum, allowing the facilitator to reply to the chat or answer questions at specific intervals.
Today’s eLearning platforms offer polls, quizzes, assessments, and other interactive content, with immediate scoring and feedback. Every interaction with the platform is tracked and measured. You can analyze these metrics after each session to see learning engagement and effectiveness and to identify areas for follow-up.
3 Tips for Virtual Sales Enablement
Supporting a remote sales team requires planning, adaptability, and creativity. Here are three tips to deliver effective remote sales training to a distributed sales force.
1. Level Up Your Remote Training Skills
Just like virtual selling, virtual training requires unique skills, such as mastering online meeting platforms, conveying enthusiasm through video, and building rapport in a virtual setting. Sales enablement leaders must develop their own skills to train effectively in person and virtually. Make sure you’re proficient at leveraging interactive tools such as breakout rooms, polls, and role-playing exercises to keep sessions engaging.
2. Leverage Analytics and Continuous Feedback
Use tools to track training engagement, performance improvement, and skill retention. These insights can identify gaps in knowledge, allowing sales enablement leaders to provide targeted training and support. Ensure training is relevant and effective, with regular feedback loops through AI-enabled simulations, 1:1 sessions, or team debriefs.
3. Foster a Collaborative Learning Culture
Remote teams can feel isolated, so fostering connection outside of training sessions is essential. Encourage peer-to-peer learning through virtual workshops. Hold “best practices” sessions online so team members can share and discuss successful strategies. Recognize achievements publicly during team calls or through internal communication channels to keep morale high.
Adding virtual training to your sales enablement strategy can give you a competitive advantage. Get in touch with The Brooks Group’s expert sales consultants to learn how.
