When it comes to new sales enablement technology, one of the biggest barriers to success is getting buy-in from your sales reps. Adoption of new policies and practices can be a struggle—especially if the reps feel as if that technology is only being implemented to “keep tabs” on them or to critique how they’re currently doing their jobs. However, with a few easy tips, you can help ensure you get all the benefits of sales enablement coaching technology by securing that much-needed sales rep adoption.

How to Foster Sales Rep Adoption of New Sales Enablement Coaching Technology

Why Does Sales Enablement Coaching Technology Matter?

Some companies think along these lines: If adoption of this new technology is going to be a battle with our sales team, why bother?

This is a big mistake! Successfully implementing this technology into your coaching arsenal has been shown to increase win rate by up to 28 percent. With those kinds of potential returns, it’s absolutely worth your time to figure out how to implement this technology and to get sales rep buy-in—in order to ensure you fully capitalize on that new technology.

1. Create a Solution for Your Sales Reps

When successfully implemented in the onboarding process, this coaching technology can arm your sales reps with the necessary skills to sell more efficiently and more effectively. However, many reps new to this system (and used to doing things a different way) could be reluctant to engage with the technology.

If you’re looking for your reps to use the technology in a specific way, provide concrete examples and solutions for your request. If you demonstrate the kind of behavior you’re after, your reps are all the more likely to have success interacting with the new technology in the desired manner.

2. When Onboarding New Sales Reps, Introduce Them to the Coaching Technology

When you have new reps, it’s critical to get their buy-in by training them through the new system. Because they don’t have any preconceived notions from former training material, you’re fare more likely to get up-front buy-in from them. Remember, though, you must demonstrate the system’s benefits, including how and where to quickly and easily access information.

New reps are often eager to prove their worth and have success right away, so make sure you make it clear this new tool can get them up to speed quickly.

3. Highlight the Benefits of the System for Reps

The best way to encourage adoption is to prove the system has real, concrete value for your reps. Make it clear not only what the benefits are but how those benefits can help your reps sell more, faster.

In particular, emphasize how easy the system is to use. The less time your reps spend searching for information, the more time they have to actually sell, so convincing them the system won’t talk a lot of time to navigate will be a big step toward adoption.

4. Demonstrate How This System Integrates with Buyer Personas and the Buyer’s Journey

A crucial part of the sales enablement process is mapping your content to your specific buyer personas and having content for each of those personas at every stage of the sales cycle.

This is an easy way to prove the value of the system. If reps can find relevant content (either training material for them or actual content for the prospects) in a timely manner, this system can save them hours of sifting through documents to find what they need. By covering every stage of the buyer’s journey, it also assists them throughout the sales cycle—not just in one isolated instance.

As sales reps are keenly aware, one of the biggest problems with content is that there’s often simply too much of it, and this system can help them easily and quickly access exactly what they need.

5. Incorporate Video into the Sales Enablement Coaching Technology

Video is simply a more engaging form of content than plain text, and it promotes better retention as well. You should, therefore, be leveraging it within your system.

Not only should there be video to help quickly and easily guide your sales reps, but you should be ensuring that video content is simple to find and quick to use. For example, mark or tag longer videos so sales reps can easily jump to the exact section that’s relative to them—rather than sitting and scrolling through the whole video.

6. Ensure the Coaching Technology Is Scalable and Modular

Sales is a dynamic industry, and for your technology to be successful with your reps, it must be as flexible as they require. That is, they must be able to adopt it and use it the way they want. For greater buy-in, this system shouldn’t be a totally built system that everyone interacts with in the same way. To some degree, each rep should be able to tailor the system to his or her particular sales-related needs.

7. Make the Technology Mobile Compatible

Tied to scalability and modularity is the need for the system to be mobile compatible. Reps must be able to access this system anywhere, anytime. Via an app, reps should be able to log in and interact with the system however is going to benefit them (accessing a particular piece of content for a prospect, watching a video about how to deal with a certain persona, and so on).

8. Help Sales Reps Become Thought Leaders within the Industry

Today’s sales reps are asked to fulfill so many roles and provide so many services, and one way to help your reps stand apart from the crowd is through an innovative technology-based coaching system.

The information and insight gained through the system will help establish them as thought leaders within the industry, giving them immediate credibility, trust, and clout with their prospects.

9. Get Your Sales Reps Using the Technology!

Perhaps the easiest way to get adoption is to simply get your reps using it. Once they start engaging with the platform, they’ll realize how it gets even faster and easier the more they familiarize themselves with the layout, and most importantly, they’ll see firsthand how it can truly reduce wasted time during the workday.

Integrating technology into your sales enablement efforts is a great way to get more organized, more productive, and more effective, and with these tactics and approaches to implantation, you can help ensure you actually get buy-in and adoption from all your sales reps.