Shadowing is a powerful tool in sales onboarding, yet its effectiveness can be significantly enhanced by leveraging brain-based strategies that optimize memory formation, insight generation, and recall.
In this blog, we'll explore how understanding the brain's mechanisms can elevate your new sellers' shadowing efforts to enable them to succeed better, more, and faster.
1. Metacognition: Guided Self Reflections
Reflection is a powerful tool for enhancing learning outcomes. Encourage new hires to reflect on -- and document -- what they just learned in their most recent shadowing experience, identify areas of progress, and set goals for growth. This metacognitive process engages higher-order thinking in the brain, leading to deeper learning, motivation, and skill development.
2. Memory Formation: Leveraging Spaced, Repeated Exposure
Memory formation is a key aspect of learning, and one effective brain-based technique is spaced, repeat exposure. This involves revisiting specific information at spaced intervals, which strengthens memory retention.
Ahead of shadowing calls, encourage the new hires to identify the specific concepts they want/need to revisit, and then ask them to capture what new information they are able to glean in the most recent shadowing opportunity. This will help reinforce memory consolidation and long-term retention of those critical parts of the sales process.
3. Insight Generation: Engaging Active Learning
Insight generation involves going beyond passive observation to actively engage in learning. Encourage new hires to ask questions and share the insights gleaned from their shadowing experiences. This activates the brain's cognitive and linguistic processes, leading to deeper understanding and the development of critical thinking skills essential for sales success.
4. Memory Encoding: Personalized Visual Tools for Enhanced Learning
Encouraging new sellers to construct visual aids like diagrams, charts, video snippets, and interactive presentations to document their insights and learnings can significantly boost memory encoding during shadowing.
The brain adeptly processes motor skills and visual information, resulting in improved retention and recall of crucial concepts and strategies gleaned from shadowing sessions.
This active involvement in creating visual tools not only reinforces understanding but also strengthens memory pathways, facilitating easier recall and application of learned material in practical sales contexts.
By integrating these brain-based notions into your new sellers' shadowing efforts, you can create a dynamic and impactful learning environment that maximizes memory formation, insightful generation, and longer-term recall.
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