the two secrets of virtual learning success

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THE TWO SECRETS OF VIRTUAL LEARNING SUCCESS

2© 2020 Challenger Performance Optimization, Inc.

The current social and economic crisis brought on by COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the marketplace along with way salespeople sell. Companies will be tempted to deprioritize sales development as they deal with serious operational and financial issues, but history has shown that companies who prepare and adapt their commercial function in difficult times sustain themselves better and recover faster.

Keeping salespeople sharp and giving them the tools and skills to adapt must be a critical part of a business continuity plan. When customers grant sellers access (and they will if they receive insight and value in the interaction), these sellers must be enabled to have appropriate and productive commercial conversations.

The nature of the COVID-19 crisis requires us all to consider another unique question: how can we be confident our virtual sales L&D investments will lead not only to positive learning outcomes, but also effective skill application and business performance?

It’s no secret that sellers prefer face to face learning experiences and engage less with e-learning and virtual training. The chart below from Training Industry highlights this fact.

Different training modes have different strengths and weaknesses. The appeal of live instructor-led events usually comes from a charismatic and energetic facilitator and a chance to socialize with peers inside and outside the classroom.

When it comes to events, learners remember the emotional impact first...and concepts to be practically applied, second. But herein lies the critical point to consider. When comparing learner preference with actual results, live instructor-led training moves down in the rankings, taking a back-seat to On-The-Job Training and Coaching (more on this later).

Perhaps successful learning lies less in whether it’s done live or virtual, but rather how it’s incorporated on-the-job.

This means: to get the impact on application and business results from learning that we hope for, we must shift our focus away from “point-in-time” training and see a bigger picture.

Most Preferred Sales Training Methods

Preference vs. Results

54%

34%

26%

23%

21%

20%

18%

17%

15%

15%

ILT

On-The-Job Training

E-Learning

On-the-Job Coaching

VILT

Informal Learning

Books

Video

Webinars

Formal Coaching

61%

56%

55%

54%

50%

48%

48%

47%

45%

45%

On-The-Job Training

On-the-Job Coaching

ILT

Simulation

Job Aids

E-Learning

User-Generated

Formal Coaching

Gamification

Informal Learning

Top 10 Sales Training Methods for Impacting Learning

Source: Training Industry, 2018



The data below compares results Challenger collected from post-training skill application surveys across 2018-2019. Challenger Selling Foundations (left) is a modular, self-paced eLearning course that blends conceptual introduction with scenario-based application. The course also prompts learners (sellers) and their managers to engage in one-to-one coaching conversations following each lesson. Challenge Yourself (right) is a live, instructor-led course offered as the foundational training of Challenger skills.

The respondent samples from both the Challenger Selling Foundations and the Challenge Yourself surveys represent companies that completed the courses as prescribed and configured by Challenger. Looking across all skills, there is less than 1% difference in knowledge transfer between the two models.

84%95%

84%79%

87%94%

84% 84%

Teach Tailor Take Control ConstructiveTension

% of Respondents Actively Using Challenger Skills

76%

88%

70% 66%74%

83%

61%69%

Teach Tailor Take Control ConstructiveTension

% of Respondents Somewhat Comfortable or Very Comfortable

Using Challenger Skills

*Results from Challenger Skill Application surveys: CSF benchmark comprised of 796 respondents across 17 companies across 2018; CY benchmark includes approximately 6,000 respondents across 2018-2019

Challenge Yourself (Instructor-led Training)

Challenger Selling Foundations (e-Learning)

The Results

When properly configured, prescribed and supported as part of a blended-learning experience, the eLearning option delivers results on-par with live, instructor-led training. Although sellers may have a preference for live training, a well-designed e-learning program is shown to achieve similar engagement. That said, both modes require a focus beyond the learning experience, toward on-the-job training and coaching, for the skills to be continuously and properly applied. Our research shows that follow up coaching tends to be weaker after e-learning. Companies must compensate for this in today’s mandatory virtual environment.

CASE-IN-POINTChallenger Skill Adoption in a Virtual Environment

To understand the concern with point-in-time thinking, let’s go back to the late 19th Century. German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus pioneered experimental studies of memory, culminating in his discovery of “The Forgetting Curve”. He found that when new information is not applied, humans forget 75% of what they learned after six days.

This academic finding is echoed in common statements about today’s sales training, “+80% of learning is lost in 30 days without effective coaching”. Ebbinghaus’s principle is universally true and guides today’s adult learning design and theory.

When new information isn’t applied, 75% is lost after just six days.

Without immediate application and reinforcement post-learning, little knowledge makes its way into practical use. This explains the power and learning enhancement of the On-The-Job modality, highlighted in the Training Industry study.

But in the near-term, organizations must find ways to enable effective learning virtually, including “On-The-Job” training and coaching. As organizations make increasingly significant investments in eLearning, it’s important to remember that the “Point-in-Time” training trap exists in the virtual world as well.


The Forgetting Curve

100%

Lapse time since learning: None

58%

20 minutes

44%

1 hour

36%

9 hours

34%

1 day

28%

2 days

25%

6 days

21%

31 days

Source: Hermann Ebbinghaus

The “Point-in-Time” Training Trap

When building and implementing a program, the learning imperative should not be the best experience (although a good experience is essential), but the best application and performance outcome.

Taking roads less traveled by might be good advice from poets, but it’s not particularly good when it comes to learning new skills. When making something stick in the mind, a well-paved road is better.

The more you hear a particular principle, practice it, think about it, apply it, share it back with others, the closer you get to a well-trodden mental pathway. Eventually the path turns into a dirt road. The dirt road turns into a paved street. The paved street turns into a six-lane paved highway....and the six-lane paved highway is hard to cover over and forget.

In live training, the facilitator is trying to pave this road as much as possible across a few hours or a few days, demanding full and focused attention. The hope is that the event gives individuals and managers enough of an initial push to stay engaged with the concepts going forward. When the coaching happens, it works

As we mentioned before, the learning outcomes from virtual can be the same, but there are two best practices that must be followed to have the same boost and likelihood of long-term application and success.

Making Virtual Stick

Multiple modalities

The key here is to compensate for the intense experience of live training by using a cadence of multiple learning modalities spread out over time. Variety and novelty give a boost to the initial experience and set up the follow-on coaching and application.

By providing training through multiple methods, we’re more likely to address learner preferences and increase training effectiveness.

Impact of Multiple Modalities on Training Effectiveness

Number of Modalities Used0

3.4

3.6

3.8

4.0

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

5.0

5 10 15 20

N= 629 training programs



We recommend a cadenced, properly coursed program that allows learners to internalize concepts in a manageable way. What teams need (in any environment, but especially in a virtual environment) is a learning sequence that puts skill application and feedback as close to the point of learning as possible to “close the loop”. This reduces the likelihood that newly learned concepts will fade. This works most effectively in three steps:

Step One: Sellers learn concepts at their own pace through engaging, relatable, and consumable self-led eLearning modules.

Step Two: Sellers immediately apply the concepts through guided activities focused on real-world sales opportunities (“live deals”)

Step Three: Sellers receive rapid feedback in real-time that “closes the learning loop” with affirmation or course-correction if necessary

Here is some good news: Many companies have made significant strides over the course of the last few years ensuring that they mix modalities and offer blended learning experiences in a virtual environment.

Now the bad news. Most of these companies still struggle to deliver effective coaching across their teams – regardless of whether the initial learning happens in a live or virtual setting.

Effective Coaching

If you distill good coaching down to its core principles – you realize that the setting (live or virtual) is not as important as the tenor or substance of the coaching conversations.

To coach effectively in a virtual environment, where the ride-along or windshield time happens on a video conference, four best practices must remain front and center:

High-quality coaching is:

Ongoing – manager provides frequent and continuous coaching support for sellers learning new skills

Job-Embedded – manager observes seller delivering sales interactions in his/her current role and current capability level

Specific – feedback is tailored to the unique needs of the individual

Root-Cause Oriented – manager seeks to identify and correct or reinforce underlying causes of behavior

When you put multiple modalities spread over time together with effective coaching, you have a framework for a virtual learning initiative that prioritizes results and practical application. It’s an investment that, even in the most uncertain times, can generate important commercial outcomes.

Learn

ApplyCoach

Repeat

Optimal virtual learning uses self-led, application-based sequences + effective coaching feedback to “close the learning loop.”


By incorporating coaching conversations and constructive feedback, from Challenger experts, into your blended learning experience, your sellers close the learning loop and apply new concepts quickly and accurately in a virtual workplace.

Learn more at challengerinc.com

Spaced RepetitionTime between learning for durable retention

Blended InstructionCombines instructor and self-led learning

Lean LearningLaser-focus with rapid

internalization

CoachingExpert feedback

delivered in real-time

Challenger Selling Foundations leverages the principles of “spaced repetition” and “lean learning” to ensure participants can effectively retain and recall concepts presented to them in a virtual environment.

• Self-Paced eLearning across 6 modules• Bite-sized lessons that build incrementally• Guided practices scenarios between lessons• Virtual sessions with a Challenger expert

Challenger™ Selling Foundations + Virtual Classroom is an intensive, in-person Challenger training experience, delivered virtually, and blended with person to person coaching interactions.

Develop the foundational Challenger selling skills your teams need to win in today’s complex selling environment. This is a program designed for learning and application that sticks.

A Complete Virtual Learning Experience

CHALLENGER™ SELLING FOUNDATIONS

+ VIRTUAL CLASSROOM

“ “

We went through virtual training with Challenger in March of 2020 with an entirely remote team. In asking for feedback from my team the responses were overwhelmingly positive. The amount of value Challenger was able to create in a virtual

environment stuck with the participants. As a company that knows firsthand the common pitfalls of virtual demonstrations, we were thrilled with how our Challenger facilitator kept everybody engaged throughout the

session. Our team felt like we had just experienced the future of training in this virtual environment.

Tracey Gatland, Managing Director, GRAPHISOFT North America

TESTIMONIAL

COPIES AND COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

The pages herein are the property of Challenger Performance Optimization Inc. No copyrighted materials of Challenger Performance Optimization Inc may be reproduced or resold without prior approval.

About ChallengerChallenger is a global best practice consultancy dedicated to changing behavior in Sales, Marketing and Service teams.What began as a research question in 2007, has changed the mindset, behavior and performance of hundreds of thousands of sales, marketing and service professionals in over 50 countries. More information available at challengerinc.com

the two secrets of virtual learning success

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