I'm looking for recommendations on delivering new hire orientation to field sales employees. These new sales representatives are not available to come to the headquarters office during their first few weeks of employment, yet need to receive information on compensation and benefits to make timely and informed decisions. I've seen Power Point presentations with a voice recording leading the participants through the slides. I'd welcome thoughts on this method of training as well as other methods.

Hi Kathleen,

This sounds like the perfect opportunity to implement a New Hire Orientation online training program.

Depending on the Field Sales people's access to the internet, etc. you could easily deploy an online solution.

As far as PPT usage, I would highly recommend not going this route because PPT honestly isn't eLearning. If you want to hit a home run with an eLearning initiative, I'd recommend using Adobe Flash technology. It is extremely powerful and is the industry standard for creating highly interactive programs.

Feel free to contact me at stetsonbu@hotmail.com if you have any other questions.

Jason

Kathleen,

I was very interested in your questions regarding online sales training. It can be a tricky business when sales reps are in many locations. If you have access to Web CT platform, I would encourage you to develop a training program. You can post discussions but also develop materials, grade progress and offer incentives as sales reps complete different parts of the training process. I would also recommend looking into some of the publishers for specific sales training tools. Prentice hall, Mcgraw Hill, thomson. They may have sales training tools that are linked up with Web CT. Everything can be customized which is such a great asset to today's technology.

Kathleen:

I had the exact training issue you are faced with now last year. I had an audience of around 250+ reps. I went with Pointecast learning solution. This allowed me to develop computer based training that took participants through the training program efficiently and effectvely. Pointecast allows you to convert ppt slides to flash then burn to a CD for delivery. It can be played on any computer that has flash enabled. It is highly successful. If you want I can provide you with a reference at Pointecast: rboysen@ comcast.net

Kathleen, last year I had the priviledge of assisting two major companies (One in health care equipment sales, one in tobbaco sales) do something similar. Each ended up with somethng quite diferent, because of the needs of thier sales folks. I am always willing to share what I know.. if it helps fine.. it is all experience based from my last 30 yaers or so in this business. Fell free to email me and I will share what I have.. scase20@juno.com..
Anna at Type A (www.typea.net) has also helped a number of companies. If you would like to talk with her I can introduce you.. steve