Knowledge is key to a sales person’s performance. Sales training and enablement practices are put in place to help reps become better at selling. Traditional sales training practices, however, have been found to be ineffective especially in today’s day and age. Read 5 reasons why sales training is failing. But experts have been looking for solutions, one of the most prominent being micro-learning.

What is Microlearning?

Microlearning is defined as the “delivery of learning content in the form of information nuggets, in standalone modules,” where each module “spans not more than 10 minutes and comprehensively addresses one learning objective.”

By creating courses spanning hours, you were ultimately forcing hardworking adults to learn lessons by heart which doesn’t seem very practical. Micro-learning, on the other hand, not only enhances knowledge retention, it also promotes better learner engagement.

By breaking training material into smaller snippets of information, microlearning appeals to associates who are on a busy schedule and therefore do not have time to sift through all that material. Besides making learning short, and focused, it also delivers great just-in-time knowledge support which is a must in the field of sales.

Now doesn’t that sound promising?

What is Micro-learning’s Relevance in Today’s Workforce?

The 21st century’s workforce can be described as one that is always on the move. Especially in sales, where your employees spend most of their time on the field. This, combined with a limited attention span certainly begs for alternate approaches to learning.

Those lengthy emails and time consuming sessions, that form a part of standard training courses, can be seen as quite a hurdle to most of your sales staff, if not all. It takes time away from the field. This influx of huge amount of information can be quite intimidating and often results in low retention rate.

‘Approximately 50 percent of content learned is forgotten within five weeks of a training event, and 84 percent within 90 days’

Research shows that microlearning works because presenting information in small chunks reduces cognitive load and eases the perceived burden of learning. Giving reps the option to review information on their own schedule (and in accordance with their own attention span) makes it easier for them to engage throughout a busy week.

This is why micro learning is seen as quite the trend in today’s work environment. With millenials taking over the workplace, why not train them using the same mobile phones and gadgets they hold so dear. These steps can also be used to speed up the process of onboarding considering its long term retention rate.

Using Microlearning to Reinforce Training

Training programs are usually loaded with a lot of information, which can be quite intimidating to learn all at once. Customers usually look at sales people as an accurate source of information. To have your sales people stumble when faced with tough questions can be quite embarrassing and cause loss of faith.

Baseline training courses only put new information into a learner’s short-term memory because the topics are only visited once or twice. A conscious effort is still needed to retain that information as a person’s ability to recall information diminishes over time unless the material is revised every now and then.

Use videos, short bursts of information, infographics and questions on a regular basis.

These short snippets of information when supplied on a regular basis can provide a long lasting effect. This is an effective way to transfer information from the brain’s prefrontal cortex to the high-capacity, long-term memory of the hippocampus. This takes less effort and time to activate it for retrieving later. So when faced with the difficult questions during a sales call, your sales teams are not caught unawares.They already have the answers. It therefore allows for a more natural and smooth conversation between sales reps and their customers.

More Resources on Micro-learning

Microlearning as a supplement for LMS

Microlearning- An effective way to train millennials

Spaced Repetition and Microlearning: Two peas in a pod

How to Convert a PowerPoint Presentation into Microlearning Content?