The internet has been a catalyst for almost all industries to be disrupted and in many cases, turned on their heads. Learning and Development is no exception to this rule. While many people would agree that there isn’t a replacement for a face-to-face, online has become a very legitimate destination for one to go and expand their sales knowledge. Lets explore a few of these places.
The MOOCS, (massive open online course), are the obvious first stop. Platforms such as Coursera, Udacity, Udemy and many others have made world class courses available to anyone, from anywhere. Further more, they provide an even playing field for course providers to exhibit their intellectual property - and profit from it. These platforms vary a fair amount in their commercial models but by-and-large they are pay to pay, and the revenue is split with vetted or accredited content providers. While there is a plethora of sales training content on board, we haven’t seen too many traditional sales methodology firms go this route…. For now.
In the worlds current state of self-isolation, Virtual Workshops have come to the fore. Most of the traditional sales training companies have overnight had to switch gears and go
from almost entirely physical workshops to virtual, leveraging platforms like Zoom and RingCentral. This move has led these companies to do something many shied away from in the past, and that’s “open enrollment”. We’re seeing them open up their courses, in a trimmed down format going online and open for the general public.
Then we’ve got Social; LinkedIn and Youtube being the main players in this case. LinkedIn bought lynda.com which falls under the MOOC category but the regular linkedIn ecosystem is chock-a-block with freely provided sales content from “thought leaders”. We have come across some fantastic resources on here, which we continue to reference. It’s also a great place to engage, especially as an up-and-comer, and to perhaps even find a mentor. Youtube we’ve found is a great destination when you have a specific issue. The search mechanism is very strong for obvious reasons and so one can very quickly get to some free, helpful content, and then go exploring from there.
Lastly, look to the Industry Groups and blogs/podcasts. Some great organizations are mostly centered on face-to-face events but replicate some great content online. Some good groups to follow would be the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals, Sales 3.0, Sales Enablement Society, Training Industry, and there are many others. The events are well worth a visit but these groups and their most engaged members are frequency posting helpful new content on their own blogs but also on LinkedIn. Individuals such as Will Barron and Andy Paul have assembled what are essentially their own “mini-moocs”, where their podcasts and blogs featuring industry leaders are housed for public consumption.
We believe that he Internet will only continue to grow as a destination for sales learning and development and sales training in particular being fairly traditional is ripe for the disruption we’ve discussed. We watch (and participate) with anticipation.
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