Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Josiane Feigon, President of TeleSmart.
Millennials are currently flooding inside sales organizations, and their numbers aren’t going to be reduced. They come in a broad range of work personality-types: some are uber-professional superstars with high leadership potential, while others treat the office like a dorm, walk around with their wrecking balls, and have extremely short attention spans.
The challenge of ramping them up and transferring knowledge is big. Since many millennials don’t want anyone telling them what to do, any type of training that involves a talking head or an authority figure is not well received. Here are some issues that inside sales training must overcome if it wants to reach millennials:
Millennials Don’t Trust Authority: Millennials approach education and professional training as a “transaction.” They won’t buy in without a clear understanding of their gain. Further, Pew Research revealed that most Millennials are less trusting of others, especially authority, than previous generations. Connect your training lessons to real life and current culture to communicate the timely value and relevance of what you’re delivering, and be sure to clearly highlight the most valuable takeaways from sales training.
Millennials Defy Hierarchy: The same study shows that Millennials prefer a less formal learning environment, allowing them to interact informally with the instructor and their peers. A recent LinkedIn internal study reported that 1 in 3 Millennials have texted their boss outside of work for a non-work-related issue compared to only 10% of the boomer generation. Growing up in a more child-centered society, many Millennials find hierarchical relationships to be uncomfortable or foreign. Open your inside sales training up to more direct contact in and around the learning sessions.
Utilize Strategic Peer-to-Peer Learning: Millennials really respond best to learning from peers, even if their peers have no idea what they are talking about. Beware that some of these peers may not be well-versed on company strategy, so stay tuned with and help grow the influential, leadership types.
Millennials Crave Variety: According to a Dalton State College study, Millennial culture has been “inundated with multimedia,” making Millennials “huge multitaskers.” Millennials won’t hold their attention on one type of instruction, much less one talking head. The study advised introducing more variety when teaching Millennials, incorporating videos, social media, television, and other sources that allow Millennials to spread their attention around.
Millennials Admire Honest but Tough Professionalism: As much as you want to be hip and cool with your Millennials, you might not be “cool enough.” And the coolness factor is short-lived anyway. Try going to the opposite extreme to win the attention and support of the more professional Millennials who are there to learn — your potential superstars — and who are as annoyed as you are with the wrecking crew: Be the cool professional, strict and smart with a take-no-prisoners attitude. Let them know that you expect great things from them, and you just might get their attention!
Josiane Feigon is the CEO of TeleSmart, a provider of inside sales training and coaching. She has trained 20-thousand-plus salespeople and still counting. Consistently recognized among The Top 25 Most Influential Inside Sales Professionals, Feigon is one of the world’s leading experts on inside sales team and management talent. She is also a #1 Rated Inside Sales Training and Bestselling author, speaker, and sales futurist. Watch her millennial video, follow her on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn, and join the conversation on Inside Sales 2.0 Trends Talk LinkedIn Group. If you want epic inside sales training for teams and managers, contact TeleSmart.
Download her books Smart Sales Manager and Smart Selling on the Phone and Online today!
