Why You Should Reskill Your Sales Team: What Leaders Need To Know

No business was fully prepared for the changes that the past few years would bring to the corporate world.

Thankfully, organizations are learning how to adjust and help their employees learn new ways of serving customers and clients. Here, we'll take a look at how reskilling and upskilling your employees can help you and your team adapt and thrive in a constantly changing environment.

What is Reskilling?

Over the past few years, many industries have had to make a fast pivot to virtual sales and events. Whether a company's new normal is fully online sales and events or a hybrid model, it's important for employees to gain the skills that they need to succeed in today's ever-changing world. Thankfully, there's no need to bring on a new sales team in order to meet the needs of today's virtual environment. Reskilling—the process of teaching employees new skills required to continue achieving in their current role—can help your team continue to thrive, despite industry changes.

Reskilling can look different from industry to industry. For example, an events company may retrain customer service employees to help clients create engaging virtual meetings that offer interactive content, comparable to what attendees would get in a face-to-face setting. A sales company may train its staff to develop a sales kickoff agenda that offers exciting launch promotions for both in-person and virtual customers. A mortgage lending company may need to shift from in-person meetings to video conferencing, while also learning how to help customers virtually sign documents and securely send sensitive financial information online. 

The Benefits of Reskilling (and Upskilling) Your Sales Team and Other Employees

Reskilling doesn't just benefit customers and clients—it also benefits employees. Many employees worry that their skills may become obsolete in an increasingly virtual world. The process of reskilling helps companies improve corporate culture by keeping valued employees who understand company values on board, all while helping them develop the skills that they need to succeed in their position as it evolves.

Upskilling can also be a valuable tool in today's corporate world. Both upskilling and reskilling can help corporations give their employees the training and information they need to succeed during industry changes. Slightly different from reskilling, organizations utilizing an upskilling process keep an eye on market trends, working to provide employees with the new skills and training that they'll need to thrive as predicted work environment changes occur. Upskilling can be risky, as it runs the risk of training employees for an environment that may not fully exist. A combination of light upskilling (according to forecasted market changes) and strong reskilling (according to current market changes) can help employees remain confident and prepared to serve customers and clients despite ongoing changes. 

How You Can Reskill Your Employees

Real-time reskilling looks different from industry to industry, and the process of reskilling employees can change with industry needs. How you reskill your sales team depends on the skills your employees currently have, as well as how your industry is adapting to using technology to take over formerly in-person activities. 

Examples of reskilling employees to help them adapt to recent industry changes may include: 

• • Training sales employees to engage in sales kickoffs hosted on a virtual event platform like 6Connex, and leveraging the platform to extend the life of your sales kickoff.
  • Brainstorm with employees about how to incorporate new and different virtual event ideas that will help to create a similar feel to in-person events for your clients.
  • Train sales teams on how to develop strong connections with clients, despite the inability to meet in-person.
  • Reskill employees on how to set up meetings virtually, onboarding clients to new, post-COVID systems.

The Bottom Line: Reasons to Reskill

If you're thinking about reskilling your employees, you're making moves in the right direction for both your team and your company. Reskilling can take some time, and it's important to be clear with employees about why this step is necessary to the growth of the company. Many employees appreciate being given the decision of whether to stay with the company and reskill, or search for a new position more in line with their current work.

Reskilling offers many benefits to organizations, including: 

• • Allowing team members to stay on board, despite the need for a new skill set in a changing market
  • Providing employees with the help that they need to thrive in a new environment
  • Saving organizations the time and money required to train a new team
  • Preserving company culture by keeping valued employees on board
  • Boosting employee morale by showing that company employees are valued—not disposable

Ready to Reskill? We're Here To Help

We’ve created an Ultimate Sales Kickoff Playbook to help you get the head start you need in reskilling your sales team, in which you can download below. Providing your employees with the sales kickoff they need for motivation, sharing new strategies, celebrating last year's wins, developing and executing successful product launches, and so much more.  At 6Connex, we're here to work with you to customize your virtual events, fundraising efforts, demand generation, sales launches, and other services for your company and your clients. Reach out to us today to learn more about how we can support you and help you meet your business goals.

Additional Resources:

Virtual Sales Kickoff Ideas and Themes

3 Ingredients to a Successful SKO