Focus Magazine - Summer 2014 - (Page 35)

eLEARNING Selling as a Team Sport I By Melyssa Plunkett-Gomez Shared stories and best practices result in sales success across the team. e Learning leverages technology to expand the distribution and access to resources for employees across your company. Recently we have seen life sciences companies apply technology to evolve learning from an individual activity to a powerful team experience, taking advantage of the skills, expertise and knowledge across the organization. Using mobile interactive video, these companies are seeing impressive business results. As one executive told us, "I have now transformed selling into a team sport!" It Takes a Player and a Coach A sales team from a life sciences company began a pilot with a mobile, interactive video application to complement sales development. Sales reps had received coaching from managers during ridealongs for many years, but the results were marginal. During the six-week pilot, they created videos of themselves practicing their Mobile interactive video allows distributed sales teams to work and learn more effectively together. sales presentations and interactions, they requested in-video coaching and they used this feedback to improve upon their performance. The results were impressive. For one sales rep named Mike, who had consistently been in the middle 50 percent of the team, his performance went from No. 21 on the team to No. 4 within one quarter. According to Mike, "I always knew my manager had good intentions, but his after-the-fact coaching wasn't helpful. But when I watched the video, I saw myself the way Bruce saw me...the way customers saw me. And with Bruce's specific and consistent coaching, inserted directly into the video where it applied, I was able to make the necessary changes to make a difference." When Mike was called up on stage at the national sales meeting as a top performer, everyone in the audience looked around and asked, "What happened with Mike to make him a top performer?" With this clear proof of business value, the decision to deploy the mobile video solution across all of sales was an easy one. The Best Stories Should be Shared An innovative global company began using iPad video as part of their sales training program, but they did not expect it to turn the student sales reps into teachers. FOCUS | SUMMER 2014 | www.L-TEN.org 35 http://www.L-TEN.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Focus Magazine - Summer 2014

Focus Magazine
From the President: Clarity, Community & Career
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Guest Editor: Your Network and the Connection Ecomony
Front of the Room: Getting Your Head Right
Neuroscience: Neuroliteracy
Introducing LTEN: The Life Sciences Trainers & Educators Network
Communities of Practice: Learning in Action
Are We Living in a Post-LMS World?
Member Solutions: Measuring the Impact of Training
Selling as a Team Sport
From the Training Room to the Board Room
The Science of Changing Sales Behavior
Personalized Medicine: The Coming Revolution
Virtual How: Trends in Selling Models
Member News
Ad Index
Focus Contacts
5 Questions with Nigel Brooksby

Focus Magazine - Summer 2014