Featured Article: Sales Training for the Virtual Interaction

By Ann Pace

With so much of today’s business world using technology to reach customers, sales people must prepare to adapt their selling techniques to the virtual workplace. In the June issue of T+D, Ann Pace explains how many salespeople lack the skills to sell in virtual environments and how sales training must adjust to prepare people to conduct online interactions.

Excerpt taken directly from Sales Training for the Virtual Interaction by Ann Pace

Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and marketing officer at Corporate Visions, explains that the disconnect occurs when salespeople practice skills—such as presentation or sales methodology skills—in front of a room of peers during a training session rather than in the online platform in which they will use those techniques. "Salespeople must practice delivering the content through role play, in a mock virtual environment," Riesterer says. "There's a dramatic difference when even the most competent in-person sales professional sells in the virtual environment."

The report describes how an effective training curriculum teaches sales professionals to communicate their messages via the phone and Internet in a provocative and engaging way. Tools include fast-paced video vignettes for gen campaigns, voicemail scripts that don't sound scripted, dynamic PowerPoint decks, and interactive virtual presentation skills using message objects and visual storytelling.

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