5 Reasons to Set Up Automated Training for Your Sales Team

Being an industry leader means evolving with the times, and automated training is one way to do just that. Here are some of the many benefits of automating your training.

Key takeaways: 

• Automation increases accessibility and allows employees to expand their skills on their terms.
• It has been shown to improve employee engagement, which also increases profitability. 
• Automated training allows you to both get and give more feedback more often.
• Companies can avoid duplicating efforts by automating trainings, which saves time and money.

Business is an ever-changing field, and technology is evolving with it. Smart founders invest in and leverage technology that helps their teams. Automating processes is one way to simplify operations and free up time to focus on more important tasks, and training is among those that can be automated. 

Larger companies have increased their investments in training staff over the last three years – at least timewise. The average number of training hours annually per employee more than doubled between 2017 and 2020, raising from 42.2 hours to 102.6. Their financial investment has decreased, however, and spending per employee appears to decrease with company size. This may reflect that bigger companies have made the investment in technology to train multiple employees simultaneously. 

There are many benefits to automated training. Here are some of the best reasons to consider it for your team. 

Employees want to learn new skills

The 2019 LinkedIn Workforce Learning Report found that 94% of employees would stay with their employers longer if they were provided learning opportunities. This is a major perk because employee turnover can cost big bucks – 33% of an employee’s salary, on average. Ensuring your employees are invested in their careers with your company is one of the best investments you can make. 

Engagement increases with automation

Professional development opportunities also increase employee engagement, and engaged employees boost profitability. A survey of over 2,000 employees found such opportunities increase engagement by 15%, and that businesses that offer them saw a 34% higher retention rate over those that didn’t. 

The ability to participate in self-paced training also drives engagement. Everyone learns differently and has their own schedules. The more convenient and accessible you make trainings – perhaps by offering multiple modalities, such as audio, video, and transcripts – the more likely employees are to engage. 

Get and give feedback 

Feedback is data, and most companies understand that employee insight surveys are important. Many struggle with getting employees to participate, however, and often have to send multiple emails and incentivize completion to get meaningful participation. Automated trainings can also include employee insight surveys and training evaluations – quizzes, scenarios, and other learning activities – as part of the process. You only have to set up your questions, answers, and feedback for incorrect responses once, and this direct employee feedback will help you to improve future training sessions.

Automation avoids duplication of efforts

Training is time-consuming, and someone in your organization will continue to duplicate employee training tasks without automation. Think about onboarding, for example. If you regularly have new employees coming in, you’d need to put on multiple onboarding trainings per year – even if you hire in groups. This will likely require a supervisor or manager’s attention, but they have their own very busy schedules and myriad other tasks to attend to. These efforts also have to be repeated for each new hire. 

Automated training process means you’ll only need to create an online training course once. You memorialize your training into a self-paced video format that can be used over and over, and create customized training modules your team can access it on demand, anytime, anywhere. New employees can then take the course on their own time, with no manager or supervisor required.

Automation saves you time and money

Automated training can save you time and money and help keep your sales team productive. Recent studies have shown that salespeople spend just 35.9% of their time at work actually selling. The rest of the time, they’re engaged in other responsibilities, such as meetings, trainings, and scheduling. Automating tasks, including trainings, helps free up time so they can be more productive. 

Automated training also enables consistency, which is a huge timesaver. Say you need to train multiple employees on a regulatory requirement like Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)-approved operations or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards. It’s important to make sure your entire workforce is receiving the same content and operating at the same levels of understanding. Failure to so – or human trainer error – could lead to making costly mistakes, and may even cause your company to be out of compliance with important industry regulations. 

Automated training ensures accurate delivery of information, including feedback on quizzes and assessments. This reduces the risk of costly mistakes, saves time, and leaves you with a consistently trained workforce. 

Contact the experts at MetaGrowth for help with automated training

If you’re looking to memorialize your training processes, MetaGrowth Ventures is here to help. We offer solutions-based sales consulting to help your company see massive growth with minimal investment. As part of our Meta Growth Founder Formula, we memorialize your training for you and create a digital library of training content that can be accessed on demand by your team.

If you’re ready to have an amazing team of top-performing sales professionals do your selling for you, contact us today. The MetaGrowth Ventures team is here to help you build and train a world-class sales force so you can focus on what matters: your scaling strategy.