There’s a new breed of sales representative on the rise. They were born between 1980 and 1995 and they’re giving tenured sales managers and experienced sales trainers gray hair faster than ever before. Born in an electronics-filled, online and socially-networked world, they were bombarded by advertising and tend to have shorter attention spans and need flexibility in their work environment.
They’re called Millennials, and if you’re wondering how to train them to sell your products and services, you might want to consider rethinking your entire sales training strategy. Progressive dealers realize they need innovative ways to develop today’s new hire.
Here are some best practices you may want to consider in your organization:
- Leverage online video module learning – Millennials grew up with it.
Ask your new hires how they took courses and learned in high school, college or university and they will tell you a significant portion of their learning experience was online learning with short, bite-sized modules filled with video and multimedia. Short because their attention span simply can’t stick with something like a Gen X or baby boomer could. And if you think millennials have a short attention span, get ready for the next group of new hires (born after 1995) because their attention span is estimated at eight seconds or less!