Sprucing Up Sales through Mobile Learning

Current Market Scenario:

Today, the marketplace is teeming with enthusiasm for acquiring smart phones, tablets and other hand-held devices. Employees use mobiles to collaborate with others, de-stress by playing games as well as to increase personal and professional productivity. This has caught the attention of management and training departments of organizations. In the case of mobile workers such as sales personnel, the focus has shifted towards delivering learning content via mobile devices, to learn on-the-go.

Quick Fact: Currently, the number of mobile workers worldwide is 1.3 billion, contributing to 35% of the total workforce.

In any organization, sales teams are directly responsible for generating sales and driving company growth. Hence, their performance is constantly measured and monitored.

Sales Representatives require up-to-date information, on a daily basis about these four aspects, as part of their job role:

Mobile Learning to the Rescue!

Mobile learning puts key resources and tools directly into the hands of the sales team, exactly in their point of need. With product information at their fingertips, they can focus on sealing the deal, instead of being overburdened with memorizing sales pitches and ever-changing product and market facts.

For instance, medical sales representatives require up-to-date information about medicines they are selling, on-the-go, as they explain the medicine’s features and benefits, and side-effects to doctors. Attractive product animations and brochures on a sales rep’s I-Phone or Android phone can directly be shown to the customer, rather than speaking about the medicine’s features and benefits.

Some more examples where Sales Reps use mobiles for productivity boosts include:

·         Taking compliance training via mobile or tablet, while travelling to customer locations

·         Collaborating with colleagues on how to share information with clients

·         Searching for information on how to overcome the customer’s objections and make a sale

Creating Mobile Learning Modules and Implementing Them at the Workplace:

The key to creating mobile learning in any organization is to recognize the balance between the learner, the learning content and the device.

Some key pointers to keep in mind while creating M-Learning modules, to achieve this balance are:

Clear Goals	Establish a clear goal and determine what the sales team really needs.
Quick Info Bytes	Make learning materials that are short bite-sized segments, taking a few minutes to consume and can be quickly accessed to make a sale.
Performance Tools	Provide performance-enhancing, 'quick-apply' tools, and not just theories.
Cross-Platform, Seamless and Simple UI	Use simple functionality and don't clutter the display. Too many choices make navigation and execution cumbersome. Use common mobile user interface controls, so that users won’t have to learn a new ways of navigation, if another device is used.

Some key pointers to keep in mind while implementing mobile learning at the workplace are:

Need Assessment	Examine the organizations business needs to determine how learning delivery through mobile devices can improve learning. Be agile to keep content relevant.
Support	Provide performance enhancing support to sales teams, during their day-to-day workflow through content administration and help desk support.
Measurement	Arrive at the ROI by factoring in the successes and failures in implementation. Implement a measurement strategy that is mapped to strategic objectives such as improved performance and financial objectives such as growing revenue, while reducing costs.

Organizations can begin their Mobile Learning initiative by performing these steps:

To sum up, in this current technology growth wave, there will continue to be new form factors and innovations. Organizations that can recognize the proliferation of mobile usage and adapt their strategies to include mobile learning solutions will have competitive advantages over others. These advantages could be more engaged learners, increased sales productivity, better customer interactions and sales closures. 

Games and Learning: A few thoughts about a game I played

I usually shy away from games and prefer to watch movies, instead.
I started playing a driving game, just to experience the feelings and emotions that accompany the activity. Although, after failing to make a successful turn, after about ten tries,  I gave up.
I think, what's important is to help the learner win and make sure games are positive experiences for learners, as there is an underlying "learning" they have to go through anyway. It's like hiding "nutritive value" in a "sugary sweet snack".
Although, the student should be aware of the intention of the game - to learn something and not just to play for the sake of playing. There is a popular saying "Garbage In, Garbage Out". This is very applicable to learning games.

Completed 'Designing Gamification Level 1 Certification' - Certification from Engagement Alliance

Emotional Intelligence and me

Why do I Engage in Emotional Intelligence?

I've always wondered about:
-The effect, situations and people have on me.
-The effect I have on myself and the environment.

I realize that:
-I am governed by my thoughts, most of the time.
-I analyze and tend to think a lot about something that affects me. This can distort my focus and concentration on the current moment.

I want to:
- Increase my level of competence to be complete authority on my self.
- Channelize my energy effectively towards responding to the need of the moment, including needs of the people I come in contact with, in the best possible way.
- Maintain a constant drive to build a better tomorrow!
- Develop my foresight and strategy by paying attention to the experiences I go through and learning from them.
-Pay attention to the emotions I experience and the emotional signals I give out.
-Identify emotions in people, and describe their emotional state to them objectively and rationally, to help them become more self-aware. In other words, give more effective, beneficial and true feedback to others.

What's beyond EI ?

...Generically speaking!

EQC Mumbai 4-2011 Photo Slides

Introducing...

According to Six Seconds (http://www.sixseconds.org/ ) ,

Emotional Intelligence is the capacity to be smart with feelings.

Emotions can either take the shape of Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde:

Bang!!! Here comes Emotional Intelligence: