“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”
~Marshall McLuhan
Contemplating upon this statement by McLuhan, the Canadian futurist and philosopher, provides a useful starting point for understanding how the technology we invented has in turn shaped us. Though the implications of this statement stretch wide, we will focus our discussion on the current and future role of technology on sales training. We will take a journey into the evolution of sales training tools that brought us to this point and discover how new technologies like virtual reality (VR) are changing sales training as we know it.
Shall we begin? Buckle up then! Pencil was invented in 1795 and became mass produced for the first time in late 1800’s. In 1870’s, typewriters started getting popular and written and typed words became the norm for learning and training. In the early 1900’s, we got the film projector and Thomas Edison claimed that “Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye.” And indeed training began to shift from words to images on a mass scale.[Tweet “Read about how Virtual Reality is changing sales training!”]
In 1950’s, overhead projectors came to market and their expansion into classrooms and organizations resulted in much more interactive training at a minimal cost. Soon after, around 1983, personal computers were being mass produced and the digital revolution was followed by Internet and devices like smartphones that continue to evolve today. Technology has not only influenced how sales training is conducted, but has determined it.
Bob Phibbs advises, “Whether it is your legacy POS system, a full-featured website, or a studio to make videos about your products, use technology tools to grow your business. A modern, cloud-based POS system can connect the dots between customers, their web behaviors, and their social profiles which gives you the ability to do a deep dive into their behavior patterns…” Now take a moment and think about how every technological tool used in sales training has had a direct effect on the salesperson that it trained.
The question now is, where to next? What technological frontiers will carry sales training into the next generation of learning? We’ve seen that over the last two centuries, the mode of learning has shifted from words to images. The trend we’re seeing in learning now is a shift from images to immersion.
The digital revolution has only just begun and thousands of research studies have established virtual reality as one of the most powerful educational tools we now possess. Naturally, it is being used by militaries of powerful countries to train soldiers [1] [3] by medical institutes to train surgeons [5], by NASA to train astronauts [6] and by many other organizations to train beginners for elite-level performance.
StageX is a startup that is taking a similar approach to training salespeople in virtual reality. Upon wearing the VR headset, the salesperson is immersed into a virtual environment (such as a car dealership or office) where he/she can practice his/her selling and negotiation skills with a virtual avatar. Different sales scenario modules can be loaded into VR and the salesperson can keep improving and leveling up.
The gamification of this platform makes it an even more engaging and powerful tool for learning important sales skills – particularly for Millennials who enjoy games and digital learning. This means that the new sales recruits no longer have to practice on actual customers and waste potential money.
Steve W. Martin notes in his article that “successful self-made salespeople possess domain-area expertise and speak the corresponding business operations language, or have deep knowledge of the industry’s technical language. These languages are the yardstick by which customers measure a salesperson’s true value and greatly influence their purchase decisions.” Virtual reality would allow salespeople to be immersed in a virtual environment where they can practice several different sales scenarios, and thereby quickly build up their understanding of the type of language they should use with customers of various personality types.
The role of technology in sales training over the last two centuries has taken us on a journey of learning with words to learning with images/videos and now total immersion. This trend is a direct representation of the modern-day need to maximize learning in the shortest time possible, in our exponentially-evolving world. And technologies like virtual reality make such upgrades in performance possible, as they have the potential to make every salesperson in the company a top-level performer, and not just those with the best sales instincts.
In that way, VR sales training is leveling the playing field. Colleen Francis notes in her article, “those who fully adopt and master technology that’s being made available to them will also become highly valued members of the workforce. Knowledge will be less of a hierarchy and much more flat across the organization.”
References
- Ajey Lele. “Virtual reality and its military utility.” 28 May 2011, Springer-Verlag 2011.
- Francis, Colleen. “Technology’s Role in Sales: Adapt and Adopt or Get Left Behind.” Engage Selling Solutions. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.
- Kaushal Kumar Bhagat, Wei Kai Liou, Chun-Yen Chang. “A cost-effective interactive 3D virtual reality system applied to military live firing training.” 27 April 2016, Springer-Verlag London 2016.
- Martin, Steve W. “Are Top Salespeople Born or Made?” Harvard Business Review. N.p., 23 July 2014. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.
- Mathur, Aman S. “Low cost virtual reality for medical training.” March 23 2015, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
- NATO report titled “Virtual Reality: State of Military Research and Applications in Member Countries”, RTO Technical Report 18, St. Joseph Print Group Inc. St. Joseph Print Inc. Ottawa. Ontario, Canada, 2003.
- Phibbs, Bob. “5 Ways Brick and Mortar Retailers Should Prepare For Better Future .” Retail Training. N.p., 22 May 2016. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.
Shay Singh