One of the greatest events in Europe for sales & marketing professionals in the chemical industry #chemtoolbox is coming soon. So, let´s explore it a little!  

B2B Marketing & Sales Excellence expert & practitioner, Ralf Schmidt,  a speaker of the event’s partner Double Loop, made some extra time for us and provided us with answers to a couple of questions that highlight the most important topics of the event in Frankfurt. We hope it will be helpful for you to understand the event better. Stay motivated and develop  your skills at The Chemicals Sales & Marketing Toolbox. 

Save the date and get ready for November 2^nd and 3^rd at   Chemtoolbox and meet representatives of the companies from all around the world.  

Would you suggest digitalizing workshops and trainings completely? 

We don’t recommend digitalizing them completely. We rather take a hybrid approach, which allows you to develop skills and competencies and increase sales efficiency at the same time. Digitalization simply saves a lot of travel time and costs.  

Where do you see the best advantages in trainings digitalization? 

Digitalization works well when it’s about imparting professional skills, competencies, methods and tools. However, digitized training formats reach their limits when it comes to applying and practicing skills, such as real business examples or interactive role plays, and  negotiation simulations. 

What is the difference between an online training and fully digitalized trainings? 

After Covid, remote trainings have become the standard for many of our marketing and sales trainings. These trainings are provided by a trainer remotely via MS Teams, Zoom or Webex. Due to lower attentions spans of the participants, these trainings have to be highly interactive and engaging.  

In fully digitalized trainings there are no trainers. Trainees take self-guided interactive training sessions with quizzes and many different interactions, based on pre-defined learning paths. These trainings can be done on any device (laptop, computer, mobile phone). Anywhere, anytime. They usually take no longer than 30 minutes (micro learning). Online tests, exams and success reporting ensure that learning success is measured and controlled. Gamification features support the motivation of the learners. The courses themselves must be engaging and entertaining. It should simply be fun to do these courses.  

What is the technology behind these fully digitalized trainings? 

The digitalized trainings are provided on a learning management system (LMS). We have selected an LMS that matches our customers’ needs best in terms of performance and data security. However, our customers don’t need to be involved in technology issues. We develop the courses and load them into the system. If you like, we can also manage the entire administration of the digital or hybrid academy. The LMS we use is self-explaining and easy to use for all participants.  

How to make these digitalized trainings attractive? 

These trainings have to be engaging, entertaining and fun. Providing a pdf or video presentation is not enough. A mix of methods including quizzes, different interactions, videos, personalization, characters, visualized storylines and many other features ensure an engaging learning experience. As one of the participants said: “These courses are so captivating that you would like to run one after the other … 😊.” 

Based on your own experience:  When would you recommend digitalizing sales training? 

Remote and digitalized self-guided trainings work really well wherever and whenever you want to transfer knowledge, develop competencies and where this does not require intensive in-person interactions.  

So, using digitalized courses will help you to focus your classroom courses much more on interactions and applying the competencies, such as case studies or negotiation simulations. 

Therefore, the digitalized courses are also often used in a blended learning approach to better prepare for the classroom activities and/or to make the classroom courses more effective and efficient.