Fortify Your Sales Force: Leading and Training Exceptional Teams

FORTIFY Essential resources for training and HR professionals

McClay EDITOR

Praise for Fortify Your Sales Force “This is an excellent no-nonsense resource for the novice or seasoned sales leader, salesperson, or sales training professional. Jam-packed with valuable information from a variety of industry experts, this book is a must have for anyone responsible for enhancing the performance of their sales organization.”

MARY A. ELLIOTT BASSETT worldwide director, sales and customer training, Eastman Kodak Company

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“Renie McClay has compiled a great body of material for sales leaders in all industries to reference as they’re looking for expertise, seasoned experience and fresh ideas to help them inspire top performance from their teams. Leaders looking for ways to continue to grow in their skills and profession will benefit from the great reference, Fortify Your Sales Force, for a long time.”

KEVIN MOORE region sales manager, Kraft Foods

T HE EDITOR

Renie McClay has managed sales training for three Fortune 500 Companies, including Kraft, Novartis, and Pactiv (makers of Hefty). She spent 20 years in sales, account management, sales management, and sales training roles with Kraft. She has hired and managed sales teams and sales trainers. Her company, Inspired Learning, helps companies to design and deliver programs and curriculum for new and veteran sales people and sales management globally. Renie is a past president of SMT: Center for Sales Excellence and the author of Sales Training Solutions, 10 Steps to Successful Teams, and The Essential Guide to Training Global Audiences.

“To truly be successful as a leader, especially in a rapidly changing world such as sales, you must continuously stay on top of the latest insights and thoughts in the field. What’s needed is a resource that collects the best ideas and brings them together in one place. Renie McClay, in her latest book, Fortify Your Sales Force: Leading and Training Exceptional Teams, has done just that. She has reached out to several thought leaders in the sales and sales training field, asked them to address a particular sales/sales training topic and put their thoughts together in one accessible resource. This is a must own, especially for all sales training leaders.”

DARYL THOMAS senior manager, sales development and education, FedEx Office

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FORTIFY SALES FORCE

focus for your sales force. For sales managers, there are tips for onboarding new sales people into the organization, leading virtual sales teams, reinforcing training to make it stick, and planning effective sales meetings. For sales people, there are a self-assessment and ideas on how to use emerging technology to sell. In addition, the book offers critical information on how to determine the impact of training, and what it takes to survive in a down economy.

YOUR

“With its emphasis on measurement and implementation, this book covers areas that are too often neglected and makes a useful and practical contribution.”—PROFESSOR NEIL RACKHAM, author, SPIN Selling

FORTIFY

Sa l es Force YOUR

LEADING AND TRAINING EXCEPTIONAL

TRAINING AND DEVELOPEMENT

TEAMS Register at www.pfeiffer.com/email for more information on our publications, authors, and to receive special offers.

Renie McClay EDITOR

YOUR

Sa l es Force When an organization wants to gain and maintain a competitive advantage, it is essential that they provide the right sales training to the right sales people at the right time. Fortify Your Sales Force is a hands-on resource for any organization that wants to increase profitability and thrive in today’s highly competitive marketplace. The book is filled with the real-life experiences from more than a dozen seasoned sales training professionals who have worked with a range of Fortune 500 companies that represent a wide variety of industries. These experts clearly define successful methods for leading and training an effective sales force in this era of limited resources and cut budgets. They offer the proven tools for any company that wants to increase the effectiveness of their sales force. The book gives a behind-the-scenes look at training experiences from leading companies such as Motorola, Proctor & Gamble, Kraft, Ricoh, United Airlines, and RR Donnelly. Based on their real-life experiences, the contributors reveal how to get internal support and funding of training initiatives, how to choose the right solution, the role leadership plays in successful training, and offer information on how to assess the competencies and needs of the sales force. Fortify Your Sales Force shows what it takes to make certain the customer is the primary

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More Praise for Fortify Your Sales Force

‘‘This book offers a broad array of practical and valuable ideas along with tangible tools that can be readily applied to build high performance sales teams. From matching the right training solution to measuring the impact of the training, this collection of articles can be a ready resource for sales managers and training professionals alike.’’ —Kathy Leck, executive VP, Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. ‘‘This is a must read ‘hands-on thought book’ for all sales training and development professionals who want to define what blocks they need in their foundation of competencies. Regardless of your experience level, each chapter guides you in building the right foundation or provides the perfect ‘check points’ for assessing what cracks you have, what new blocks to add, and what mortar you need to strengthen yourself to stay relevant in responding to tomorrow’s development challenges.’’ —Joe Slezak, manager of sales team development, Miller Electric Manufacturing Company. ‘‘Fortify Your Sales Force offers proven and actionable strategies for keeping your sales force ‘frosty’ in a tough economy. Sales leaders and trainers from any organization struggling to maintain a competitive advantage in today’s economy need to read this book!’’ —Jesse Teverbaugh, manager, Technology Solutions, CDW.

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‘‘Fortify Your Sales Force is a corporate treasure map that leads your organization down the path to consensus and into the house of higher profits. From the board room to the training room, this book provides clarity in a world of information overload. If you’re passionate about improving corporate performance, then this book is a MUST read!’’ —Todd Zaugg, CEO of Matrix Achievement Group, LLC and author of Warrior Sales Monk. ‘‘In Fortify Your Sales Force, McClay has assembled a world class team of contributors across 14 topics of interest to sales leaders and sales trainers around the globe. You’ll get a variety of perspectives—from the experts who have been in the arena. It is definitely worth reading!’’ —Stephen J. Bistritz, Ed.D., Sell XL; past president of SMT: Center for Sales and Excellence and co-author of Selling to the C-Suite. ‘‘Fortify Your Sales Force’s sage contributors serve up the perfect mix of proven and pragmatic advice to those who have among the toughest of tough jobs—sales leaders. Read it now. Next quarter is way too late.’’ —Dave Stein, CEO, ES Research Group, Inc. ‘‘Because we live in a world of diversity, we need to understand the many different angles of the sales process! That’s the reason this book is so important. Get the best from the different authors and your sales people will hear the word ‘yes’ many times!’’ —Alfredo Castro, president of MOT, chairman of the ASTD 2010 Advisory Committee, author and international consultant. ‘‘Leave it to Renie McClay to compile the best thinkers in the industry to inform, challenge and inspire us.’’ —Polly Rowland, former director, Sales Strategy at Kraft Foods.

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Fortify Your Sales Force Leading and Training Exceptional Teams Edited by Renie McClay

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Copyright © 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Published by Pfeiffer An Imprint of Wiley 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 www.pfeiffer.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet websites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. For additional copies/bulk purchases of this book in the U.S. please contact 800-274-4434. Pfeiffer books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Pfeiffer directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-274-4434, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3985, fax 317-572-4002, or visit www.pfeiffer.com. Pfeiffer also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fortify your sales force : leading and training exceptional teams / edited by Renie McClay. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-470-48866-9 (cloth) 1. Selling. 2. Sales personnel—Training of. 3. Sales management. I. McClay, Renie. HF5438.25.F674 2010 658.8’1—dc22 2009037351

Acquiring Editor: Matthew Davis Marketing Manager: Brian Grimm Production Editor: Michael Kay Printed in the United States of America Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Editor: Rebecca Taff Editorial Assistant: Lindsay Morton Manufacturing Supervisor: Becky Morgan

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CONTENTS

Introduction

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1. Invest in Your Salespeople Now

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Bob Rickert 2. Winning Leadership Support for Sales Initiatives

23

Jim Graham 3. The Perfect Salesperson: A Guide to Building Your Dream Team 45 Teresa Hiatt 4. Develop Sales Reps Using Structured Feedback 67 Kenneth R. Phillips 5. So Many Choices: Determining the Right Solution

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Michael Rockelmann vii

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Contents

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6. Capabilities: The Engine That Drives Success

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Maria Edelson 7. Making Training Stick: Get Them to Use It

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Susan Onaitis 8. Measuring the Impact: Did They Use It?

141

Gary Summy 9. Collaborative Partnership to Maximize L&D Investment 161 Susanne Conrad 10. Sales Managers: The Heavy Lifters in Training Salespeople 181 Rick Wills 11. Productive New Hires, Faster: You Don’t Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression 199 Renie McClay 12. ‘‘Raise the Roof’’ Sales Meetings

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Lanie Jordan 13. Successfully Leading Virtual Sales Teams

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Renie McClay 14. Media Mojo: Using Technology as a Survival Strategy 273 Trish Uhl About the Editor 305 About the Contributors Index 317

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INTRODUCTION

R

EGARDLESS OF THE economic environment, companies NEED talented sales people. Sales revenues are the life blood

of most organizations. To keep the revenues flowing, sales leadership and sales representatives must continuously improve their skills to meet changing demands of a competitive global economy. Revenue fluctuations have a direct impact on the bottom line. An increase in the effectiveness of a sales force by just 5 percent translates to a significant increase in the bottom line. An increase in sales, particularly these days, isn’t easy to get. Sales management doesn’t always have the answer to new challenges or know how to make it happen. Their talents may lie in different areas. Sometimes it takes an objective resource to see things more clearly from a distance. Often the answer can be found in experience with other industries or a different approach to sales and learning strategies. Many organizations don’t have sales training departments or deep cross-functional experience. Where do they turn for guidance? This question is precisely the reason for this book. I have set out to gather experience from the best and the ix

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brightest in the sales industry to provide wisdom and best practices to help you fortify your sales organization.

Who Are the Contributors? My selection criteria for book contributors was that they need to be wildly talented, successful, and have deep experience with sales forces. Each contributor is a thought leader in his or her particular topic area, and I relied on them for providing the content. They share tried-and-true tips and ideas that they have personally used to succeed and improve their organizations. This book is a compilation of articles from thirteen contributing authors who have mountains of experience building and bettering sales forces. Combined, they have more than 75 years of selling, over 60 years of management experience, and greater than 120 years of improving the performance of sales teams. There is an astounding amount of wisdom between these covers for those willing to do some reading and pondering. Fortunately or unfortunately, this book is not ‘‘vanilla.’’ Some of the authors have a strong opinion about their topic and perhaps even an edge, or they take one side of an issue. Similarly, the contributors don’t necessarily have the same view or particularly agree with each other. This strong feeling comes with experience and wisdom, and that’s okay with me. I actually like this about the book because I believe there is more than one way to approach many of the topics presented here.

Who Will Benefit from This Book? If your sales force is perfect, the revenues are pouring in, and you’ve perfected the business case to get whatever funding you want for training or other events, this is not for you. This book is written for those who want to improve their sales teams and are open to new ideas to make that happen. There are topics for sales leaders, sales managers, and trainers who work to develop sales audiences. There are both strategic topics and more tactical topics.

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How to Get the Most from This Book The book does not have to be a cover-to-cover read. Using the table of contents as a guide, go to the topics that interest you. Better yet, determine who in the organization would benefit from the various topics and split up the reading. I wish you well in your journey to increase the talents and capabilities of your sales force and ignite your sales success. I invite you to put some of these ideas into practice and then let me know how they work for you at email me at [email protected].

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1 Invest in Your Salespeople Now Bob Rickert

Y

OUR SALESPEOPLE ARE fighting a new kind of battle today.

Doing business has changed in recent years as economic cycles have become less predictable and erratic, creating greater competition and forcing every company to re-examine its go-to-market sales strategy. With every economic cycle, there is a chain reaction of good things or bad things that occur, depending on which way the economy is heading. In good times, demand is strong, prices are stable, and growing the company can be done while investing in the business. However, in a downturn, the impact can be swift and painful. In reaction, customers typically initiate deep cuts in spending in every area of their businesses, including technology, labor, operating expenses, inventories, and capital investments. As a result, decisions are delayed or simply not being made at all to conserve cash and to ensure that spending does not get ahead of 1

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revenue or capital reserves. This type of reaction has a direct impact on virtually every industry and every company.

Facing a Strong Headwind What does this all mean for your salespeople? They are your first line of defense, as they are the first to experience shifts in your customers’ buying behavior. In the past, a slowing economy meant you had to consider being more aggressive with pricing and offer more services to slow the loss of revenue and margins. Customers still bought, it was reasonably predictable, and you simply had to manage your business more cautiously. That will not be the case in the future. For customers, in a tough economic environment it is all about conserving capital, making deep cuts in spending, and forcing greater competition among suppliers to get lower pricing to optimize their expenditures. Customers’ behavior will become even less predictable as they attempt to get their arms around their continued financial challenges. This means it is going to take strong leadership to keep the sales organization focused, effective, and successful in the face of stiff economic headwinds. There are only two ways companies and their sales leadership can respond to economic downturns and increased competition. First, you can batten down the hatches, ride out the storm, and hope you are competitively viable when the economy rebounds. Or you can press your advantages and exploit the opportunities the financial challenges have created by embracing new sales capabilities and go-to-market strategies. Now is the time to make a significant investment in your sales organization, even though the easy decision would be to wait, hunker down, and conserve resources. However, with the public and the press hammering corporations for how they spend money, it is essential that a business case be built to justify every significant investment a company makes. To accomplish this will require a new mind-set and learning to speak the language of financial return and improved profitability. In this chapter, we will explore the financial challenges that are impacting your organization and what it will take to build a strong business case for

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investing in your salespeople when they need it most. We will also review strategies for identifying measurements tied to the company’s key business drivers and objectives that you can use to make a persuasive business case for equipping your sales team for a new kind of competitive battle.

Why Invest in Your Salespeople Now Business cycles are constantly evolving. When the economy is growing, companies invest in their sales organization in a variety of ways, including sales meetings, training, promotional campaigns, incentives, client conferences, CRM technology, customer intelligence, market research, and more. But once the organization misses its revenue targets and forecasts grow soft, the budget shrinks and the pressure to produce revenue grows exponentially. In typical economic cycles, a defensive posture can be effective by focusing on retaining existing business and finding ways to win market share from weakened competitors. But a deeper economic downturn requires a different kind of response. An economic downturn is the time to go on the offensive by enabling your salespeople to pursue profitable selling strategies.

When economic downturns are relatively short, you can often avoid investing in your salespeople. Actions can be taken to remain competitive knowing a rebound is within sight. However, fighting for profitable revenue gets harder the longer and deeper a downturn goes. You run the risk that reactions to the downturn, such as discounting, more financially lenient terms, and providing additional no-cost or low-cost value-added services will be institutionalized and difficult to undo later when the economy recovers. This is why investing in the sales organization during a downturn becomes even more important than any other investment an organization can make. You need your salespeople equipped to handle the pressures from customers and increasingly desperate competitors to retain your competitive advantages.

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Lessons of Past Recessions Taking a look at current economic conditions, it will serve you well to learn from history. McKinsey conducted a study of past recessions that companies could learn from as they make their decisions to invest in their businesses, focus on surviving, or sit on the sidelines waiting for the recovery. They found that some companies emerged from recessions stronger and more highly valued than they were before the economic downturn. By making strategic choices that sometimes defied conventional wisdom, they increased their market value relative to those of their former peers and thus gained more power to shape their industries. I believe this will be the case during this financial crisis and should be factored into your investment plans.

Consider a contrarian strategy during an economic downturn while your competitors adhere to more low-risk, low-reward approaches.

McKinsey studied one thousand industrial companies in the United States over the period from 1982 to 2000, which included the recession of 1990–1991. They identified companies that kept their leadership positions within their industries or became successful by challenging top-performing companies. They studied the characteristics of successful companies, during both the recession and the subsequent economic recovery. They found that successful companies took an aggressive position in everything from acquiring companies to investing in new products to improve competitive advantage. Of the various strategies deployed, perhaps the most unexpected action was that industry leaders actually increased their operating expenses. While most companies tightened their belts, the successful companies refocused rather than cut spending, giving up short-term profit for long-term growth. These leaders spent significantly more on selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs than did companies that lost their market leadership. Another interesting point was that, during expansionary periods, successful leaders actually spent less on SG&A than did their less

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successful peers as their improved efficiency was an outgrowth of their earlier investment. Finally, expenditures on R&D, marketing, and advertising followed a similar pattern. Despite selective spending increases during the 1990– 1991 downturn, successful leaders were far more efficient, even with their increased spending, as they maintained an employee-to-sales ratio 27 percent lower than that of their industries. The financial markets rewarded those companies willing to pursue contrarian strategies during the downturn. By the end of 1990– 1991, successful challengers had a market-to-book ratio that was 25 percent higher than those of their unsuccessful challengers. In most economic downturns, conserving cash is a major concern. Still, when it comes to investing in the one area that ultimately impacts cash the most, your revenue engine, it goes to reason that now is the time to invest to stay ahead of the competitors that are most likely not investing.

What’s Impacting Your Business Too often I hear sales leadership complain that, given the importance that revenue generation plays in an organization, they are left fighting for budget dollars after ‘‘non-revenue-generating’’ investments are made. But at the top of every organization, executive management is challenged to prioritize and choose the investments that generate the greatest return. To position a strong business case for investing in your salespeople, you need to view the business the way your executive team does. Looking at your business from 20,000 feet, how are current economic challenges impacting your ability to grow profitable revenue? What should you look at to assess the challenges you might face when putting together a business case? Here are five key business factors that might be directly or indirectly impacting your company’s financial health and that could prevent senior management from making an investment in your salespeople at this time: 1. The Credit Squeeze.This isn’t usually a factor that sales leaders think about in normal times, but companies are now under extreme pressure to conserve their capital. Is your company putting an extra emphasis on managing cash flow? Lowering

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costs, reducing inventory levels, and deferring capital expenditures make it an especially difficult climate to ask for funding. 2. A Shutdown in Capital Investments. Companies in many industries are stopping or slowing down capital expenditures. The uncertainty of future economic growth has stalled attempts to build infrastructure or improve plants or make other large-scale investments. A JP Morgan study on the healthcare sector, for example, found that 33 percent of hospitals are stopping capital investments, and only those that offer an attractive ROI are being funded. The lowest ROI projects are being cut first. 3. Major Cost Reductions. If you are in an industry that is experiencing huge fluctuation in the cost and availability of raw materials such as chemicals, electricity, oil and gas, food ingredients, steel, and more, it is probably causing your cost of goods or services to go up faster than you can pass through price increases to your customers to maintain your margins. This will force your organization to take a hit in profitability to maintain your current levels of revenue. This puts tremendous pressure on margins and causes a pullback on the expenditures you are pursuing. 4. Consumer Spending. Are you in an industry that is directly impacted by consumer spending? When consumer spending trends downward, inventories build up, purchasing slows down, and price pressures surface as a key strategy for selling products in inventory, further pressuring the company’s financial health. 5. Executive Turnover. Are high-level executives leaving your organization? This will make it more difficult to make a case for investing in your salespeople. Typically, when there are leadership changes, everyone in the company becomes obsessed with keeping their jobs. For sure there will be a lack of clarity during the transition. Until the priorities of the new leadership team are communicated, senior leaders are hesitant to commit to future investments in people-related expenses.

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Anticipating market trends has never been more challenging than it is today.

There is growing pressure on executives to deliver immediate results, especially in the current environment. It is also difficult given the public scrutiny on company performance and the challenges of living and dying by quarterly earnings reports. This is causing turnover among CEOs to reach all-time highs. The pressure CEOs face will always involve the financial performance of their companies. Compliance to new rules such as Sarbanes-Oxley creates even greater pressure. And now with the government’s involvement in the excesses of Wall Street leading up to the financial crisis, it will not be unusual to see a CEO forced out due to questionable business decisions or overall performance of the company, especially during these times. It is important to assess your company’s environment and how internal and external changes or challenges are impacting senior management’s view of investments, especially as it relates to developing and supporting the sales team. Understanding these pressures will help you prepare a business case that addresses the immediate financial and organizational concerns of senior management.

What You Need to Know About Your Business There is no question that managing sales puts you in a position of strength in terms of leveraging resources to help you deliver profitable revenue growth. But there are also inherent risks as well. To make an informed and impassioned plea for funding and support, you will certainly be asked how your proposed investment will impact the business. With the new economic realities we face comes a new level of responsibility for the sales leader. Business and economic cycles in the past were reasonably predictable, generally slow to occur, and easier to manage around. In today’s environment, having a stronger knowledge of the business will prepare you to respond quickly to new emerging challenges.

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I have spent nine years with Aarthun Performance Group working with Fortune 500 companies to improve financial performance through improved sales financial literacy and value selling. Most of the company leaders I have interviewed admit that the sales organization is viewed as not having a deep enough understanding of the key financial drivers they directly impact, nor do they understand the customers’ business, leaving them vulnerable to competition. It’s a big gap in corporate America, and the consequences are greater today than they were even a year ago. So why do you need to understand your company’s financials? Understanding the key trends in your business and understanding the key financial indicators that are driving executive decisions will assist you in positioning your business case for investing in your salespeople in a way that addresses executives’ most important goals. Most people understand whether their company is making money or not. You can review your quarterly releases and 10K to keep up with your company’s latest financial performance. Pick up The Wall Street Journal and you can learn about what is going on in the market, in your industry, and with your key competitors. Most people understand it when the company announces that revenues are up, profits are strong, and shareholders are receiving a dividend. However, I have found that, although these performance numbers are useful, they don’t really tell the whole story. Mostly, they won’t tell you about the challenges the company had to overcome to be successful. Only when you can interpret the meaning of the numbers ‘‘operationally’’ does it begin to help you understand your business at a higher level. If you work for a private company, many are open about their financial situations. Some may not be, especially during tough economic times. But understanding more than just the top-line numbers that are revealed can help you get a picture of the company’s key challenges and priorities. There are three things you can look at to enhance your discussions with executive leadership and your development of an effective business case—revenue growth, expense management, and the use of capital.

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The Financials Financial reporting is fairly standardized and easy to interpret. When it comes to top-line growth and what goes into the company’s revenue generation, no one knows that area better than the sales department. You know all too well that the key numbers being looked at, in addition to revenues are cost of goods sold, gross profit, gross profit margin, operating expenses, and operating profit. But what is behind the numbers? If the company is under unusually stiff competitive pressure, winning the business at a lower margin may have been a Herculean task. Did you exploit a market opportunity to defeat a stronger competitor to win new business? This needs to factor in to your business case as you defend how you achieved the numbers and why enabling and equipping the sales organization with new capabilities and tools will directly improve those numbers. I suggest that you compare the numbers going back three years. Looking at three years’ data will provide the view that analysts take to evaluate your company’s key performance drivers. You should also pick one or two of your competitors and compare the numbers. Here are a few questions you should pursue in your analysis: • Are you growing at a faster rate than last year? How does that growth rate compare to your key competitors? • Are you growing faster than your overall market is growing? • Are you achieving your growth goals in your target markets? • Are you penetrating new accounts and taking market share away from your key competitors? The answers to these questions can be very revealing in terms of what the market and shareholders look at in terms of future performance expectations for your company and whether you are a good investment versus your competitors.

The Trends As a sales leader, you need to compare two key trends that most directly impact your organization. Gross profit and gross profit margin are your

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first lines of defense. These suggest that a company is viable, has a strong plan, and is executing well. Gross profit margin is especially critical today because there is extraordinary pressure from customers to cut prices, which has painful consequences. For every dollar of revenue you bring in, the gross profit margin tells management just how much money it has left over, after paying the cost of goods or service, to run the business. Seems simple enough, but it is the trend that management reacts to first and foremost. Every dollar of gross margin lost drops directly to operating income. Here are the questions they want answered: • • • •

Are the gross margins going down a trend we need to plan for? Why is it happening, and what can we do about it? Is it an increase in raw materials that couldn’t be passed through? Is it a competitive pricing issue that to retain the same level of business you had to spend more through discounting?

Whatever the answers to these questions are, the pressure will be on to improve your overall go-to-market sales strategy. The next important trend looked at are operating costs. Senior management will assess the trend in operating expense as a percent of sales ratio. This tells them what it is costing to generate a dollar of revenue. It is an indication of how efficient the company is. Are operating expenses (also expressed as SG&A) going up at a faster or slower rate than revenue? That does not land on the sales department solely, but since that is where your investment dollars will come from, understanding it and how sales can impact it is a powerful tool in persuading management to invest. Increases in raw materials or pricing challenges alert management to margin pressures down the road. That is why cuts in salaries, training, and travel budgets more often are done quickly because management knows that the pressure to adjust costs to produce promised profits will increase, and operating expenses are the easiest target. There are other implications for trends. These trends may also be leading indicators of the need for training. If the company is growing, new hiring and speed to performance will be keys to sustaining the growth

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or turning around a decline. You can anticipate learning needs based on the key financial trends of the company. Most of all, demonstrating a working knowledge of these trends will elevate you as a sales leader in the eyes of senior management.

What Executives Are Saying You can learn a lot about your company’s current and past performance and future strategies by what your executives are saying publicly. The numbers tell a story about what is happening in the business. I have talked to many sales managers who routinely listen to their companies’ quarterly and annual earnings calls to understand their financial results. The executive team will explain external factors like the economy, trend in raw material costs, internal changes, and initiatives designed to improve performance, projections they are making for market growth, competitive factors, and more. As a leader, it is important to hear what your executives are saying about your business so that you can position strategies with your salespeople that reflect corporate direction. Perhaps the most revealing part of the call, however, is the questionand-answer session. Executives and their investor relations teams put together substantial information to prepare for questions from analysts. The questions reflect how analysts keep score in your industry or sector and expose the concerns analysts have as they attempt to report on the business and advise their firms whether to invest, and on whom. What management is saying publicly also provides you insight into how they intend to address the business to deliver value for the shareholders. It is an opportunity for you to key in on strategies and/or challenges that you can align your business case with. This will help address the most pressing business challenges the company faces, especially those you can address in your effort to build the capabilities of your organization.

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How to Analyze Your Sales Team’s Needs Once you understand your company’s key financial priorities, be prepared to get in front of your leadership with a business case that reflects those priorities and is based on an assessment of how your sales team can deliver on them. You are skilled at managing sales and applying strategies to win business. But to get to the next level as a strong leader, you need to leverage your understanding of the business drivers discussed above by conducting an analysis of your sales team’s strategies and needs tied directly to the company’s priorities. As you conduct your needs assessment, be prepared with well-thought-out answers to the following business questions.

1. What Challenges Do You See in Growing Revenue? What leadership wants to know: Leadership needs to understand the challenges you are facing in growing the business. For example, one challenge you might be facing is the continued uncertainty about customers’ pullback in purchasing. With the slowdown in customer spending, salespeople may be at a loss to determine ‘‘what buttons to push’’ to move their customers off the dime. Is it cash flow that is causing the customer to pull back? As a result, are customers throwing up new kinds of obstacles around extending terms, requesting vendor-managed inventory or value-added services at no cost? You will need to defend in business terms what and why things are happening and what you intend to do about it.

2. Will Your Salespeople Be Able to Protect Price and Defend Margins? What leadership wants to know: Be prepared for this one! In times like these, customers who have been less price driven in the past may now be under immense pressure to drive all suppliers’ pricing down as they feel urgency to protect cash and squeak out a profit (at your expense). Pricing is a profit-improvement strategy. Salespeople always feel the heat on protecting margin, but margin is lost not only in price but also in

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services that are provided without compensation. There is a cost for the resources the sales team relies on, and if the focus is too much on the revenue and not on the profitability of that increased sales volume, senior management will balk. McKinsey found in a study on pricing that for every 1 percent in price increase a company can achieve, it will result in an 8 to 10 percent increase in operating profit. Conversely, they found that on average a 5 percent discount, all things being equal, will require 18.7 percent greater sales volume to make up the loss in profitability. This is why your team and your plan for investment must be tied to improving and defending margin.

3. What Are Your Competitors’ Strategies for Winning Against You? What leadership wants to know: Sun Tzu said in his book The Art of War that the key to success is not in defeating the enemy, but in defeating the enemy’s strategy. Do you know what your competitors’ strategies are for beating you in the market? What are you up against in this challenging economic environment? What intelligence do you have regarding what your competitors will do to defend their positions? Leadership does not like surprises, and when it comes to competitors, anticipating what your competitors will do is key to winning.

4. Are Your Salespeople Equipped to Win? What leadership wants to know: Are your salespeople ready for the new challenges that face them? Are you clear on the three to five things that you must do to get your salespeople ready for the market challenges? These might include training, data, marketing support, market or industry intelligence, or competitive information. Sales managers know the strengths and weaknesses of their sales teams, but articulating the specific needs translated into business improvement is what management will want to know, especially with regard to your proposed solution. More than that, you will need to be able to link the financial consequences or impact to a specific competency gap you propose to close.

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5. What Are Your Critical Success Factors? What leadership wants to know: Be clear on the one or two critical success factors for your success. For example, in the current environment, selling to higher-level decision makers may be the single most important thing your salespeople can do to achieve their revenue numbers. Getting to the customers’ executive-level decision makers and presenting a strong value proposition based on improving their profitability will result in a higher win ratio (because you pre-empted competition by being there first); larger deals (because the total value and impact are sought and better understood at that level); and deals close sooner because the case is compelling to invest now. This is what your executive team wants to hear: that you are clear and that you have a strategy. This is all the more reason to build a business case that aligns to corporate goals. Your salespeople need more than moral support during tough economic times.

In a tough economic market, growing the business usually requires that you take business away from your competitors. You must win without giving away margin in the form of discounts, terms, or no-cost services. To accomplish this, salespeople must sell on value and not price, call higher where the economic decisions are made, and differentiate not only what they sell but also how they sell it. Salespeople are in the best position to protect your margin, and your business case should always address the skills and performance drivers that help you manage these critical success factors. The worksheet that follows is a guide that will help you think through those areas that you know executives will challenge you to answer.

Sales Team Analysis Worksheet 1. What are the trends in your industry? Example: Are the key industries you serve immune from the current economic downturn and represent opportunities to expand your

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business and protect your position, or are the industries you serve being adversely affected by the downturn and require innovative ideas to remain profitable? 2. What will it take to grow your business? Example: Retaining the 20 percent most profitable customers; selling existing products and services to new prospects; selling new products and services to existing customers; going after new target markets or industries. 3. What are your competitors’ key strategies? Example: Competitors are bundling their solutions and positioning their offerings as a cost savings package; competitors are discounting to buy market share and pressure higher value companies like yours to price to win or withdraw. 4. What support will be required to equip your sales team to compete and win? Example: Training on how to analyze customers’ financial and business needs with the skills to sell higher may be the single most important support you can provide; it might be customer intelligence or market intelligence; it might require new marketing tools to combat competitors’ low price strategy. 5. What role can executives play in helping you win in the marketplace? Example: In tough economic times, taking your executive team to the customer can be a very important sales growth strategy. Should you arrange peer-to-peer C-suite meetings and dialogue to position your company for success?

The Business Case for Investing in Your Team In good economic times, executives make decisions regarding investments the same way, based on return on investment. That includes return on the capital that is required, but it also includes the human capital required.

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The CEO cuts a big check every day in the form of operating expenses (people, processes, etc.) to execute the business plan. What he or she always wants to know is: Are we getting our money’s worth? Regardless of what level you are presenting your business case to, the approach needs to be the same; it is always about how any business improvement idea can impact the company’s operational, financial, and business processes.

Components of an Effective Business Case Based on the key trends driving your business, you must start with the challenges executives are facing. You need to establish the financial and business need before you can effectively formulate a recommendation. Next you need to identify the measurements you will use to track success—acquiring new accounts, revenue growth, being paid for valueadded services, customer retention, and so on. Start with the end in mind: What financial outcomes are needed? From there identify your key strategies that will address the desired outcomes. This might include targeting only a certain market segment or selling higher, which can drive results more quickly. Here are the components of the business planning approach.

Think Like Your CEO As you approach your solution and prepare your business case, put yourself in the shoes of your CEO, regardless of whom you are targeting for the presentation. This will help you anticipate the issues, concerns, and questions that will likely be asked of you. Use the information you gathered in analyzing the company’s business. It has been my experience that executives view sales leaders as experts in selling and not enough as financial stewards of the business from a total profitability position. That is not to say sales leadership or any level of sales management lacks the requisite financial and business knowledge; it is just that too often the perception is that it is really about revenue and not addressing the direct and indirect ways the sales department impacts profitability. Speaking the

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language of the financial and profitability will cause executives to view you as someone who understands their world and, more importantly, their challenges. To prepare a strong business case, focus on what keeps executives up at night. Revenue growth is certainly at the top of the list, but it will be more than that. Other questions covered in part earlier include: • Are sales growing faster than your key competitor’s? Analysts and shareholders are looking at this and it may be a critical area to study. • Is the sales organization protecting price and defending your margins? Pricing has a significant impact on overall profitability, which often is the single biggest metric executives look at. • Are your operating expenses in line with your growth rate? Some of this is outside of your control; however, within the sales organization, cost management is important. • Are you retaining your high-profit customers? In some industries or companies, losing one or two key customers can have a dramatic impact on the business. • Are you retaining your best people? And what are you doing to ensure they are operating at a high motivational level?

Delivering Your Business Case Executives are open to new profit improvement ideas if they address one or more key financial or business priorities. The first thing they want to know about your recommendation will be what is required of them. What is the investment being requested, and what will they see in return? They will also press you on when the company will see the return. There is no shortage of requests of executive management to invest in the business. They have too many choices; their job is to deploy limited capital on those projects that bring the greatest return to the corporation and shareholders. Job one is sorting out how best to manage the resources of the company and the capital that has been bestowed upon them. They will also gauge your level of confidence in your recommendation, which

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will be a key determining factor when considering your recommendation. They will want to know how confident you are that the outcomes can be achieved, how you will measure results, and how much time is required on your part to implement the solution.

What every executive wants to know is: Why should I invest and why now?

Here are a few things to keep in mind when approaching executives with your business case: • Demonstrate your understanding of the business. Summarize your understanding of the company’s key performance metrics and executive strategies, and position your solution in a way that addresses the critical short-term and longer-term business drivers. If the company is suffering revenue and margin declines, speak in terms of ratios and why you are addressing them with a solution designed to impact their key business goals. • Sell results up-front. To capture the executive’s attention, demonstrate the kind of financial and business impact your recommendation will have on the organization. Nothing speaks louder than numbers, especially when the organization is under performance pressure. You should quantify the impact of your solution in terms of sales growth, margin improvement, new customers, and so forth, and be prepared to defend your numbers. • Align your recommended solution to other important corporate initiatives. If possible, link your recommended solution to other key initiatives to demonstrate that you are aligned with the key strategies of the executive team. • Set realistic time frames. Be clear and realistic regarding the time and effort required to implement your project as well as the amount of time and effort you will have to devote to ensuring success. Executives want to know whether it will take away from other revenue-producing activities if the sales management team

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is focused on this. You need to set clear expectations and follow through on your promises. If it takes six months to see the impact, be specific about the milestones that can be anticipated on the way to results, what steps it will take, what will be observable, and how results will be measured and tracked. • Close for a decision or a clear next step. Fortunately, your executive team got to be where they are by being decisive and making informed decisions quickly. They will welcome a leader in their company pursuing a timely decision so that attention can be given to the appropriate next steps. Close for a decision and/or a clear next step demonstrating your interest in getting things done.

Business Case Worksheet 1. What are the key corporate financial and business goals and the CEO’s key strategies? Example: The company is focused on acquisitions to achieve growth; the focus is on lowering costs to improve margins, cost-reduction measures are being put in place; strategies for lowering raw materials are a key focus; there will be investments in R&D and new product rollouts. 2. What are your key strategies? Example: How do your strategies for your sales team address the key goals of the corporation? Because CEOs address their most pressing business and financial concerns every quarter, identify those areas you can reference in your recommended solution to strengthen your business case. 3. What is your proposed solution and how will it impact the business? Example: What are you going to propose that will address the needs of your team to deliver on the most pressing corporate objectives? The sales team is always the first line of defense when it comes to growing the business. Based on the big issues, there will be connections to how the sales organization needs to focus their attention and what is required to be successful.

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4. What are the key measurements you will use to track success? Example: Revenue growth; margin improvement; retaining customers; selling bundled solutions; selling value; selling higher. 5. What are the key sales and sales management activities required to implement the solution? Example: What will be required of you and your sales managers to implement your recommended solution in terms of time commitment and resources, and how will it happen while you are performing your other responsibilities? 6. What are your recommended timeline and next steps? Example: Have a clearly defined timeline and next steps. Include next steps for your executive team and other areas that are needed to support your solution.

Building a strong business case for investing in your salespeople is important during any market condition. You can offset some of the impact of unpredictable economic swings by asking your best people what they are hearing from your most valued customers. Your best salespeople are the ones who typically spot early warning signals because they are having higher-level business conversations with senior levels who are monitoring their business activity. These conversations with executives offer important insights into the trends that predict future behavior (that is, requests for a review of supply chain efficiencies; alternatives to building inventories too high; slowdown in orders; end user behaviors being tracked, etc.). Another strategy is to invest in the top 10 to 15 percent of your salespeople. Too often, spending stops altogether. It is expensive to invest in the entire sales organization, even in the expansionary periods. But when you are early into a recession, persuade senior management that one way to mitigate the revenue decline is to enable the top performers

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with new tools, alternative pricing/bundling, and terms—as they are in a position to make an immediate difference. This will also help you make a broader business case to invest in the whole team as the recession deepens. Finally, talk to your customers more often. Many companies have formalized a ‘‘voice of the customer’’ to stay in touch with trends. It is even more important at the onset of a recession to have a defined swat team that gets out ahead of the economic changes by looking into the source of your revenue, your customers, and better understanding their business (which is your business).

Summary We are living through challenging times and the rules have changed. For most companies, holding their positions and conserving resources seem like prudent approaches. But as history has shown us, for those companies that aggressively pursue a strategy of investing in their salespeople, the rewards can be great. To advocate for investment during a difficult economic environment when senior management is attempting to ward off disaster is not easy. But, like every other financial decision senior management is making, a business case built on a strong return on investment is essential. Many sales managers fail to pursue funding for their people because the head winds are simply too strong. But for innovative sales leaders who know how to leverage the resources for improved performance, it will serve you well. Knowing your company’s financial situation and offering solutions that address the company’s highest priorities will earn you credibility at a time when you need it most. This will require analyzing your business and your team’s needs and proposing a development plan that achieves results. Building a business case for success is the only way in the current economic environment to win your share of available budget.

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Bibliography Richard F. Dobbs, Tomas Karakolev, and Francis Malige. ‘‘Learning to Love Recessions.’’ McKinsey Quarterly, June 2002. Michael V. Marn, Eric V. Roegner, and Craig C. Zawada. ‘‘The Power of Pricing.’’ McKinsey Quarterly, 2003. JP Morgan Medical Supplies and Equipment Report, North America Equity Research, December 17, 2008.

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2 Winning Leadership Support for Sales Initiatives Jim Graham In today’s economy, more than ever before, you as a sales leader must understand and successfully execute the internal sale.

T

HERE IS NO silver bullet for persuading senior leadership to support your initiatives! It’s a tough, uphill battle, where you

are competing for time, tight budget dollars, potential outsourcing, reductions, restructuring, cost controls, and many more worthy projects. Other constituents are just as enthusiastic and eager as you are to get the same support. So here are a few best practices and some success stories for gaining that support for your projects. But let’s be clear: there is no panacea, no one right way, no way that works every time, and no formula that I know of for always getting what you want. We will explore some options and give you ideas, along with a few actual cases, that could work in your organization. 23

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Credibility Let’s start with credibility. As the old saying goes, sometimes you’ve got it, and sometimes you don’t. In gaining support from senior management, you must have it! This is not negotiable; you cannot gain support for your project without having credibility. How do you get it? First, you earn it through years of service to the company. You rise through the ranks, become successful in sales or sales management, earn a reputation for effectiveness, take on challenging initiatives, and succeed. Basically, your reputation precedes you. It’s great if you have it, but it’s tough if you don’t. In today’s world, with mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, and rightsizing, many of us don’t have years of experience to support our positions. Perhaps the VP of sales who supported you has now left the company and your champion is gone. (I have a story about a project like this later in the chapter.) As a result, credibility can be hard to come by. What is credibility? Credibility is doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. It is your track record of performance. How quickly and professionally have you responded to each request? How successful have your projects been? How visible? Who knows about your past performance successes? Can you or someone who has credibility summarize your successes to impress a decision maker? As you did with your customers, one way to gain this credibility is to obtain the support of others who have it. You can’t gain it alone; you must get help and support. You gain credibility for your project by the associations you have with those who are seen as credible. The people who coach and support you must be credible, even if you are still earning your stripes. They can actively support you via email recommendations or in hallway conversations (yes, those conversations with the right people do influence decisions), or by attending a presentation and supporting you with their presence. They also may coach you behind the scenes (the invisible coach). What they do and how you use their credibility is very important. The higher this person is in your organization, the better!

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The general has more clout than the lieutenants, captains, or even the colonels. Here is an example from my company: One of my first experiences selling—yes, selling—a major project to senior management was a large, interactive computer-based learning simulation project designed to train salespeople more effectively and efficiently. I started by building a very elaborate presentation with well over one hundred slides in more detail than a congressional report. Then I requested two hours with our president. His approval would lead me to the CEO. I started with someone with whom I already had credibility, who had credibility with the ultimate decision maker, and someone I thought could influence the decision. I told him I had prepared the presentation for the CEO and wanted him to critique it. After the first ten slides or so, he stopped me and asked what I was doing. He described the attention span of the CEO as that of a gnat, and suggested an executive summary of a few slides, without the agonizing detail I had prepared.

I learned a valuable lesson about being brief and precise. I took the advice, built the executive summary with plenty of detail to back it up, and a few weeks later presented to the CEO. The CEO asked, ‘‘Who else have you talked to?’’ I told him the president (hoping that would seal the deal). He asked more questions. Because the project was for sales, he wanted to know whether I had the approval of senior sales leaders across the business units? No. I had not talked with all of them, but I certainly would. I went off to meet with each, get his or her sign-off and support, and returned to both the president and CEO with support signatures and obtained the finances I needed.

Consider the Audience Sometimes all the support you need from the most senior level, the CEO or president, is a signature on an appropriation releasing the funds. At other times, their support is in the form of a message to the organization.

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It’s amazing how much support you get when the CEO or president is behind your initiative. Unfortunately, politically minded people often check the organization chart before making a decision. We all know that there are followers and leaders in every organization. Your job is to gain support high enough to bring the followers along, just as you did in selling a customer; you need to determine roles and relative clout. Here is an example of how this might work. A well-known mid-western furniture manufacturer wanted to create a ‘‘learning organization,’’ an environment of ongoing learning, growth, and development for all employees. With this in mind, a well-seasoned training leader with remarkable credibility set out to create a state-of-theart facility to provide such an environment. But in order for this project to be successful, it had to have senior leadership support and, in fact, board funding approval. This person’s credibility made support from the highest levels possible, and the project proceeded, becoming a best-inclass facility not only in the industry and state, but unquestionably one of the top five in the nation. Most facilitators for the center were internal and well credentialed in their own right. The CEO who supported the project with the board also was an instructor. Can you guess how many other members of the senior management team also were involved in leading sessions in the new facility? Yes, my friend, you are correct—all members of the senior team became involved in one way or another in developing talent at the new learning center. As you can see, sometimes you need a signature and funds, and sometimes you need the direct support and presence of senior managers. As you plan your strategy, think about how to maintain support at this level for much more than just approving the funding.

Defining the Return When faced with a lack of your own earned credibility, as well as a lack of high-level support, you must consider another tactic. One tactic is showing the potential impact this initiative will have on the company’s bottom line. (I’m sure you needed that advantage when you were selling.)

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Can you prove that changing the behaviors of certain individuals with training will have a return on investment for the company? If you have compelling evidence of such an outcome, then you are home free! Not so fast: we need to think this one through a bit. Why? Because people refute irrefutable evidence all the time! Most of us at one time or another have completed an exhaustive needs analysis to understand gaps in performance and have developed plans to close those gaps. It’s a good starting point, but the message is sometimes lost in the project minutiae. Have we considered business outcomes? Do we know the key business drivers of the internal organization? Is an earnings per share target such a driver? How about growing revenue? Reducing costs? Competing in new markets? Launching new products? Retaining talent? These questions, and their answers, are as important as your credibility in selling your initiative. Using business terms shows that you are thinking of the business—and management’s definitions of success. If you make management look good by helping to achieve their goals, you will become a business partner. Let’s dig a little deeper. A few years ago, Rob Brinkerhoff introduced a high-impact learning process called success case methodology,which is tied to measurement and evaluation of training outcomes. He should be credited with changing the way that many training people and businesspeople alike think about training outcomes. His process can help you gain that elusive credibility we all seek. And if you already have the credibility, it can cement your ability to gain support from senior management. Quite simply, it involves understanding the business-related questions above. Which business outcomes must be produced for the enterprise this year? Every company has a quarterly scorecard (at least the public ones do), and they are evaluated against their industry peers, forecasts, previous quarters, and more. We, as professionals, must understand those outcomes if we are to win. Here is a story that shows this point. Sales training at a large medical products company was historically classroom-based for new sales representatives joining the company.

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Often reps were from outside the industry, so they had to learn about the industry as well as products. Experts were committed. A solid training process was in place. The sales training leader, working with an external consultant, determined it was time to move to an e-learning platform for product training and to institute a ‘‘masters’’ program for senior reps, as well as define a curriculum for overall sales development. The price tag would be more than $1 million for three years and included: analysis, selecting an e-learning vendor, design, development, 360-degree feedback instruments, and, of course, heavy use of the external facilitator. How would you sell this expensive idea to a conservative senior management staff? First, by understanding the company sales culture—what sales needed, sales usually received. Second, by using some ideas from Rob Brinkerhoff about measurement and proving outcomes. Finally, with a well-orchestrated plan expertly presented to upper levels, showing speed of learning and 24/7 access to e-learning modules (many of which were also used by experienced reps for their own quick reference). The outcome? Complete support from senior management! The metrics offered proof of success and encouraged continued funding. In the business climate today, we must be business professionals as well as sales leaders. Rob Brinkerhoff provides ample direction for how we get there. Understand the key business drivers of your organization first, and design your outcomes to meet those initiatives. Deceptively simple, and not impossible to execute! While having discussions with key senior leaders and trying to gain their support for your initiatives, you should be asking what the success drivers are for this year and/or this quarter. When you meet with business unit leaders, you should ask the same questions about those business units. Ask for the behavioral outcomes they need to see from your sales teams, sales managers, and senior sales leaders. The answers will tell you what your special initiative needs to accomplish. When you understand the business drivers, both for the company and the business unit in particular, you can create ‘‘line of sight’’ plans and ideas to accomplish those business objectives. (And you will have some very

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interesting business discussions with those you engage.) Your project, your initiative, and your plan must be linked to business outcomes if you are to have a chance of winning support, with or without credibility. You really must understand your audience just as you did in your external sales role. We spend a lot of time training sales representatives on how to sell to senior executives with programs like ‘‘Selling to Senior Executives,’’ ‘‘Selling to Vito,’’ and ‘‘Selling to the C Level.’’ The message always is that, if you are going to sell to senior management, you must understand how they buy! It seems simple, and in some ways it is, but not always. I mentioned earlier that your priorities compete against other priorities. Executives have more on their plates than just your project. Someone (the president of our company in my story earlier in this chapter) must help you identify the ‘‘hot buttons’’ for his or her buying decisions. You need to understand the budget. Are there budget dollars available? Who is going to pay for your program? Will it be billed back to business units? Will the budget house the costs? There are always budget dollars available for the right idea. You may have to search to find them, but the dollars are there—somewhere. You also have to work with accounting to determine whether your project can be included in the ‘‘capital’’ budget. If a project includes hardware, building improvements, upgrades, or furniture, you may be able to capitalize the costs instead of expensing them. The expense budget is usually much more sensitive than the capital one. Maybe you can amortize the costs over several years, and this will help to reduce the single-year impact. You must shape the content of the message as well. Executive summaries are an excellent place to start. Become familiar with the detail that supports your summary, and find a way to make it short, sweet, and to the point. Realize too that the people you are presenting to are quick studies. They would not be where they are if they weren’t. Don’t oversell your proposal; get the signature and get out! Wow, does that sound like an old sales adage . . . once the customer signs the contract, shut up and leave quickly! The content is important, but so is the delivery. Many a great message, proposal, or project with an important payoff for the

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company has been denied because the delivery was flawed. Just as a good facilitator can make an average training program come alive and a poor facilitator can destroy a good program, so too with a proposal. Here is an example. In a large manufacturing company, a proposed system would cost thousands of dollars and expert time from the systems group. It was clear to those pushing that this system would be beneficial to all managers worldwide, but the challenge was to convince the budget approvers in purchasing and finance that this was a good deal and a critical need for the company that could save millions. Gaining agreement for a meeting to discuss the project was a challenge, accomplished primarily through friends of influence. At this meeting, the decision makers were coached on using the system and provided with impressive marketing materials to engage their interest. They really enjoyed using the system and found the materials to be impressive. So they responded well to the internal sales pitch/public relations approach and approved the project. This took a long time (eighteen months), so patience and persistence were important to the success of this effort. Your executive summary is like the executive summary often built into a sales proposal, or a request for proposal response. Think about your customer—the senior executive—and build the summary around ‘‘what’s in it for them.’’ What are the business drivers? Will the project deliver results? and Why do they need it now? Why should they spend the company’s dollars on this instead of any one of several important initiatives? (Sound familiar?) Timing is critical! Timing is everything! If your proposal falls in Q1 and the budget was finalized three months before, you will have little chance of gaining approval. Unless, and this is a big one, someone very high up wants to support the project. As I said, there are always budget dollars available for the right idea. If your company is completing a good year, timing may be right for your proposal. If, on the other hand, it’s been a tough year or quarter, or the next year looks dismal, all bets are off on the proposal being accepted. And here is another point on timing that you cannot control: a change

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in personnel. Leadership changes occur without your knowledge (at least before it happens), and you may find you’ve been working with the wrong people. Sales training company Miller Heiman, in its program Strategic Selling, would call this a red flag—a loss of executive sponsorship. Here’s something that happened in my company: My team and I worked for several months convincing a group president and an executive VP of sales how important it was to conduct a fundamental leadership program for the sales leadership team. Our proposal was strong, needs were identified, and curriculum was developed and tied to business outcomes. We had done everything. Our last meeting included four hours with the executive VP of sales defining launch strategies, attendees, and location—detail after detail. Three days later, an organization announcement was made: the company had reorganized business units and these two individuals were not retained. The outcome for my team: no sponsors and new decision makers—we had to start over.

Defining Outcomes Your next question is, or should be: How are you going to measure the success or outcomes of your project? Put yourself in the chair of the senior executive. Would you ask: What will be the outcome of my investment in your project? Have you measured the ROI? Will the investment make a difference? How will I know? Who else is supporting this (another way of asking whose neck, other than yours, is on the line)? Companies always measure the ROI of a capital project (new equipment, a plant, a system upgrade, or an acquisition), and you can measure the ROI on your project if it’s a capital expenditure. A N E X A M P L E FR O M O F TRAI NI NG

T H E

W O R L D

In a large equipment products company, a system was purchased to provide data on the success of sales promotions. The senior management decided that it was worth the investment to purchase and implement this

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system. It was considered critical to the success of the organization and important to achieve organizational goals. The training group compared the costs of having the external company that designed the system conduct the training to the cost of having internal resources conduct the training. Management was sold on supporting the internal training effort. While the training was a success, the system was not, so management considered the training unsuccessful as well. The lesson we learned was to spend our training efforts on projects that are more likely to succeed rather than on risky ones, because management often cannot separate the failure of a project from the successful training that was conducted. It was a hard lesson and not one you can always avoid. With limited resources, it is important to prioritize the projects that you can be most successful in supporting, and that will show positive results for the organization.

Often the results of an initiative are intangible, much like buying insurance: I know I need it, I’m just not sure how much, which type, and for how long. Most would agree it’s better to have a trained workforce than an untrained one. Some might argue that if we train them, they might leave. Others might argue that if we don’t train them, and they stay, what do we have? (Which is worse?) Few senior leaders would disagree, but why then are training dollars the first cut from the budget? Many of us have experienced this over the years. We know the organization needs XYZ, and many times so do the executives, but decisions must be made. If you don’t have a direct link to business outcomes, you won’t obtain the funding! Sometimes even when you do, the funding is just not there. We were conducting a leadership development program through a large mid-western university for thirty-plus attendees. The program had budget approval and had been conducted before. In fact, the relationship we had with the university went back several years and several sessions. We had complete approval and support from the business units the participants worked in, and we were four weeks from launch. The university faculty had developed their sessions, correspondence had been

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distributed to all, and university accommodations were booked. Then I received the dreaded phone call from the CEO’s office and was asked to immediately cancel the program. No discussion, no negotiations—just cancel it. I, of course, being of stout heart, scheduled a meeting with the CEO to explain why this was not a good idea for our company reputation and for the message it would send to participants, and that it was just too darn late to do such a thing. I received a quick lesson in economics, which I have never forgotten—what it means when a public company is close to missing quarterly results. The CEO not only wanted to save the cost of the program, travel, and missed work opportunities (there were a lot of sales leaders in the program), but he wanted to send a very clear message to the organization: your number 1 job is to make the numbers to which we committed. (I was not in sales, but was leading a major initiative during a quarter.) We postponed instead of canceling, and rescheduled six months later. The university, to their credit and our relationship, did not charge the normal cancellation fee, although it would have been impossible to schedule another company in the slot. I made sure the CEO knew what a good partner the university had been. We ran this program and several others there.

Budget Process and Timing Timing, as we’ve seen, can be so critical. The project was right—the purpose, process, funding, support, and agreements at all levels— and it was critical for leadership development. Sometimes the chief financial officer (CFO), not the CEO, is ‘‘to blame’’ for a project rejection: ‘‘Obviously, it’s the accountants who don’t understand the importance of our project and who reject it only because they have veto power! They don’t understand the complete merits of our very important endeavor!’’ In my CEO example, that CEO was an attorney by background, although he did understand the numbers quite well (as any CEO must!).

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There are times though when the CFO or the accounting team can be your ally, rather than your adversary. Here’s another example from my experience: We were in the midst of an internal consulting project with our large account managers. We were trying to measure the outcome of our very extensive efforts by using additional volume and/or profits from their accounts. The account managers were held to rigorous details and analysis of their accounts. They dug deeper than they ever had into understanding their customers’ businesses. We looked at everything from marketing to operations to sales and distribution. Update meetings were held every three weeks, and each participant presented what he or she had learned and accomplished since our last meeting. There were three follow-up meetings after an initial training session to understand a process for building a deliverable and working with an external coach. A lot of time, effort, and sweat went into the program. We were collecting solid growth numbers, but needed more support to continue our efforts. To gain that support, we developed a presentation, which we delivered to our CFO. We were conservative in the results we were claiming; we didn’t want to get caught up in numbers we couldn’t support. He looked at our analysis, asked several good questions, as you would expect, and in the end told us our numbers were better than we thought they were! We were surprised, even though we had been knowingly conservative. He further pointed out results we could take credit for that we had not considered.

The point is that the accounting team, especially the CFO, can be helpful in selling your projects to senior management. If you have the numbers that the CFO supports, you can’t get a better recommendation! Before you present to the CFO, make sure you have worked with someone in accounting to help you understand which metrics make the biggest impression on those who approve the numbers. Is it return on assets (ROA), internal rate of return (IRR), or another measure? How are other projects judged? Do you need to prove a return on investment

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in three years or five? The better you understand the internal accounting mechanism, the better you will be able to present your story.

Sell It How do you really develop that winning presentation, and what does it contain? As I mentioned earlier in the chapter, there is no one right way, but there are some elements that must be considered. The list below may help if you have not done this before. Even if you have, it might be worth a quick review of the fundamentals: 1. As you do in sales, know your audience and how they like to receive information. (If you don’t know, ask one of their assistants or get coaching as I did from the president.) Provide an executive summary, which should include answers to: Why are we doing this now? What impact will this have on the growth and development of participants? What is the change outcome that will make a difference? What are the costs? Don’t try to hide this at the end as most people do with proposals; present it up-front, but then explain why. What time will this save? Almost any project worth its salt will speed up a process or provide greater efficiencies. Which costs will the project reduce? For example, reduce travel, less time from the field, and more trainer time? Who, other than yourself, is sponsoring it? How long is the development time? Give yourself some flexibility here, no matter what your developers or external suppliers are telling you. When will it be implemented? 2. Always under-promise and over-deliver.

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3. Keep it short. Brevity is one of the keys to success. 4. Bring the back-up data. Don’t be surprised with a question you can’t answer. (Just as you would prepare for a sales call, anticipate what your audience will want to know and questions they may ask.) 5. Practice, practice, practice. Don’t get fooled by what might seem to be an informal meeting. Even if you are not presenting via PowerPoint, be thoroughly prepared. In many cases, you have only one time to make a good impression. Even if you know your audience, don’t be too casual. 6. PowerPoint slides can be a great way to present, if done right. Make the presentation clear and concise. Avoid putting 80 percent of what you say on the slide! Put 20 percent of the information on the slide in bullet points, and talk to the rest. 7. Schedule enough time for the meeting, and avoid circumstances when they are preparing for board meetings or budgets and/or during the busy times in your organization. (Again, an executive assistant can give you insight here.) 8. Be enthusiastic but rational. They probably will be less excited about your project than you are, but your job is to get them excited. 9. Remember that your objective is to gain the commitment—once you do, leave. Don’t become caught up in trying to explain more just because you think they should know. Once you get the signature, grab it and run.

Progress Updates As part of your project proposal, you should plan to provide feedback on progress and demonstrate, within a reasonable period of time, that the dollars invested were invested wisely. The story earlier from the medical products company included very detailed end-of-the-quarter and annual

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ROI analyses. It was a three-year project, so interim accounting of costs and results was critical in gaining additional funding. In order to obtain funding from senior management for your next project, you must provide progress reports. These should be at least annually or, even better, quarterly to apprise the leadership team of your success and accomplishments. Again, consider your audience. They don’t need length or depth; they need a brief synopsis of accomplishments and measures. For example: 1. The results we are seeing are as follows . . . . 2. Our cost savings have been . . . . 3. Our improvements in process are as follows . . . . 4. Our time savings have resulted in X . . . . They will tell you if they want more information, so you should be prepared. Tips for Success 1. Start with company or organization priorities and goals. 2. Identify what training is required to achieve those goals. 3. List all stakeholders (see example below). Create a plan to engage each stakeholder (person who stands to benefit from the successful implementation) and explain how it will support his or her success. 4. Find out the definition of success. 5. Design the training to achieve this definition of success and the learning objectives that would ensure that organization results can be achieved. 6. Don’t waste time and money on projects that are not viewed as essential by key leadership. 7. Start a year ahead to obtain budget funds for key projects. 8. Put together a solid business case

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9. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t get the funding. They are often choosing among many other important initiatives. 10. Keep informed of the state of the business, choose your timing (when they have money to spend), and word requests very carefully. 11. Always keep open communications regarding status of projects, needs of management, and success celebrations with management and stakeholders. The results of gaining leadership support for initiatives might include the following: 1. Priorities are always agreed on by the end of the year for the next year. 2. There is a large budget and there is support for training. 3. Suppliers are engaged as partners for success. 4. Purchasing helps with RFP and approval process. 5. Finance always says yes. 6. Senior management introduces concepts and ideas and demonstrates their leadership. Credit for results is often shared with training. 7. Sales representatives and sales managers ask for more training on a continuous basis and often fund it. 8. Training expenditures are approved quickly. 9. Training often is highlighted in the company newsletter. 10. Senior managers often attend and stop in on training sessions. 11. Many managers conduct training sessions, as requested. 12. Subject-matter experts make it a priority to be available for design, review, and delivery of training programs. 13. Managers and the best salespeople make themselves available to coach those who request their support. 14. Training results are reviewed on a monthly or quarterly basis.

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15. Awards and recognition are given to training staff and sales representatives for outstanding performance. A

S ALE S

TRA INING

EX A MPL E

We were developing a low-cost (webcast) approach to training sales representatives on new products and we engaged the VP of sales in the design and implementation to save money on travel and training costs and time. The VP agreed to invite participants with our prewritten memo and his signature. He then followed up the memo with a phone message to all sales representatives telling them that he expected their full participation and would be checking to see who attended and who did not. Then he asked for attendance rosters and gave them to his directors to follow up to see why someone had not attended the session. He congratulated those who completed the training and encouraged them to use the techniques they learned in the next few months so he could track the increase in sales on the product. This really motivated or coerced everyone to attend and apply the new learning because they knew the expectations and follow-up would be conducted by their managers. They would be responsible for applying the new learning and showing results from the training. Sales on the product on which they were trained were closely tracked to ensure the reps were using the knowledge and skills that had been learned.

In short, what you want to do is 1. Develop a plan to obtain leadership support. 2. Find out what the ‘‘hot buttons’’ are for key leaders. 3. Use their terms and examples to prepare to discuss what they would like training to do for them. 4. Deliver excellence on a continuous basis. 5. Make them the leaders of the training effort, but do all the work for them.

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A N O T H E R

EX A M P L E

We were asked by the president of the division to create a university in which senior executives would learn to use and teach their employees about new products. Our dialogue helped us learn what he was looking for, and we agreed to provide drafts for his approval. We quickly worked as a team to design a proposal and some examples for his review. We made him the ‘‘dean’’ of the university, created a curriculum, and brought him sample tools and certificates for the completion of the training. After some revisions based on his input, the program was introduced at the annual executive meeting by the president, who expressed his expectation of completion by every executive. He would receive monthly reports regarding who had completed the training and who had conducted the training for his or her sales representatives, and he would personally sign and present the certificate of completion to each executive. Ongoing communications from the president (which we created and he signed) were sent to all executives throughout the year. Lists of those who had completed each phase of the university sessions were sent out to all executives on a monthly basis so that those who had completed were recognized and those who had not completed were motivated to finish quickly.

Your Plan for Leadership Support Answer the following questions in order to get leadership support for a specific initiative. If you find that categories cannot be completed, it is time to do more homework to determine the answers to these critical success factors. This list is just a beginning; you should add other factors that will be important to the success of the project. 1. What critical needs have to be identified? 2. What is required to achieve organization goals and targets? 3. Who are the key stakeholders?

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4. What are the costs? 5. What results need to be achieved? 6. What are the objectives? 7. What is the timing? 8. What is the plan? 9. What is the schedule for engaging stakeholders? 10. What are the roles and responsibilities? 11. What are the measures of success? 12. What is the communication plan? 13. Is there a design document? 14. What is the implementation plan? Persuasion is an art and a science, and it is important in gaining other people’s support. ‘‘Change management’’ to engage support of leadership often depends on relationships that have been built over time (trust) and the numbers to prove success. Senior managers are people too. Find out what they like—and especially what they don’t like. Just like your customers, administrative assistants are your best friends (or they can be your worst enemies, that is, gatekeepers). Always make the senior leaders and your manager look good. Find ways to talk to managers on a more casual basis, such as after presentations or at charity, community, or network events that you attend to show your support of their interests. Always tie your initiatives to the corporate goals they are committed to achieving. Show that you value their time by making their involvement brief and preparing everything for them to ensure that things proceed smoothly.

Summary There are a lot of right ways to gain acceptance on the projects you bring to senior management seeking their support, and there are a few things you can do to shoot yourself in the foot, so to speak.

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I hope this chapter has spurred your thinking about your approach to gaining support. But let me capture what I think is most salient: selling to senior executives is not completely different from selling to senior levels of a customer or prospect. You must 1. Have credibility (If you don’t have it, you need to find a way to get it!); 2. Consider the audience and the message content, length, depth, time, structure, level and position of buyers, and more; 3. Make sure your project provides a return on investment for the corporation because you are competing against other projects that will; 4. Define project outcomes very clearly, with ROI, time savings, improved efficiencies, and more; 5. Understand the budget process timing; 6. Be prepared to answer questions; 7. Practice, practice, practice; 8. Get the order and get out; 9. Plan progress reports and gain senior management agreement on when they want to see them; and 10. Remember that selling internally is not that different from selling externally. So, let’s get going! There are lots of people to persuade! Questions for Reflection • Challenge yourself . . . . Do you really have credibility within your organization? Why? Are you sure? Can you prove it? • Are you willing to put that credibility on the line, risk it to get support for your next project? • How well do you know your audience? Are there new players? Do they all think alike? Do they all buy what you are selling?

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• How good are your investment numbers? Will they pass muster with your CFO? Have you asked the CFO or someone else in finance to test your logic? • As you wrote your proposal, did you clearly define the outcomes? Can the real value be found? Have you differentiated your project from others under consideration? • What about your timing? Are you in line with the budgeting process? • Who else do you need for support? If you have an advisory can you get submarined at the last minute?

Recommended Resources Robert O. Brinkerhoff. Success Case: Find Out Quickly What’s Working and What’s Not. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2003. Robert O. Brinkerhoff and Anne M. Apking. High Impact Learning Process: Strategies for Leveraging Business Results from Training. New York: Perseus Publishing, 2001. Robert B. Miller and Stephen E. Heiman, with Tad Tuleja. Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by America’s Best Companies. Reno, NV: Miller Heiman.

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3 The Perfect Salesperson A Guide to Building Your Dream Team Teresa Hiatt

T

HE NEED FOR sales training is very easy to document. Anyone who has ever done a survey and asked a sales team what they need to

be more successful can attest to the fact that the salespeople always want more training. Any analysis of poor sales results, lower profits margins, sales productivity declines, or any other problem that might involve a sales team will almost always have ‘‘more training needed’’ somewhere in the top few causes of the problem. Also, to be fair, when research is done to showcase positive areas of sales success, ‘‘good training’’ or a ‘‘well-trained sales force’’ is often highlighted as a key ingredient to the success. Jerry Marterella, of the Lincoln Consulting Group, states in his article for the Chally Group, titled ‘‘The Eight Critical Success Factors of a High Performance Sales and Marketing Organization,’’ that ongoing skills training is the key component of the second critical success factor. 45

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Research, expert opinion, and even common sense agree that an ongoing program of sales training is a key component to sales success. What we cannot find is similar agreement from all the research and opinions about exactly what kind of sales training we should be doing. Whether it is the sales manager conducting informal training at the weekly sales meetings or formal training conducted by professional sales trainers, there are wildly diverse methods, content, and focus for sales training across the industry. Let’s stop and ask a question. ‘‘Why are there so many different styles, types, and content for sales training?’’ Answer. ‘‘Because none of them works for every situation.’’ Because we have clearly established a need for sales training, our goal is to take that one step further and help define what kind of sales training should be delivered to a given sales team. One of the most effective ways to approach the creation of training programs is to start with a competency model.

What Are Competency Models? Competency models define the key characteristics and job tasks that are performed by top performers of the job. They are a way of associating success at the job with predictable, repeatable, objective activities that show up with statistical frequency in observed performance of the job. Rather than think of training as a way to introduce newly hired people to the company, give information about the job, or provide communication about resources, think of training as delivering the necessary skill sets to fill any gaps between what the student consistently does in her or his job and what a top performer would do in the same job. Tactical Planning: A manager may also use the competency model to determine weekly or daily activities and expectations for an employee. This can help with time management, performance goal planning, and other management tasks.

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Strategic Planning: By using the competency model to define the critical job tasks, management can also make strategic planning decisions on technology, resources, and manpower allocation. Once it is clear what job tasks are required for top performers, more emphasis can be placed on enabling those specific tasks.

Creating a Competency Model for Sales The fundamentals of developing a competency model are easy: basically, just watch several people who are very good at doing a job for a while and record what common things they all do and how those tasks help make them successful. Sounds really easy, but there are some tricks to creating a repeatable, predictable model. First, a group of top-performing salespeople has to be defined. This may seem simple on the surface, but many teams have isolated a group based solely on highest sales for the year and found little or no commonality and have given up on the competency model process. Let’s define top-performing salespeople and avoid a common mistake in this area. Typically the very top (5 percent or so) of an active sales force are rogue outliers. These are salespeople who succeed on the sheer force of their powerful charisma and personality. They have a unique inborn set of personal communications skills and work habits that cannot be predicted, reproduced, or measured. Start by eliminating these outliers from the initial assessment, as only frustration and failure will result if you leave them in. Imagine creating a training plan for developing basketball talent that had a requirement of being born eight feet tall. This would hardly be the kind of repeatable behavior that can be the focus of training. Once the outliers have been removed from the stack ranking, the top-performing group is defined as the next 10 percent of the sales force. A process of interviews, observation, and manager input can be used to create a list of the most important facets of the job, such as sales activity, technical knowledge, business acumen, etc. It can be as simple as asking the group to identify specific job tasks they use to make successful sales, or it can be a comprehensive analysis completed by one of the many

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vendors that provide this service. The key is to find common items across the group in predictable, repeatable patterns. The key to developing a good sales competency model is to find common items across the group in predictable, repeatable patterns.

Each job task that seems to be common across the group of top performers is then given a reality check and labeled according to business impact. For example, we could find that our top performers all wash their hands before making sales calls, but a reality check would identify that task as having minimal business impact and it would be excluded from the list.

Sample Competency Models Below is an example of a simple sales competency model using ten job tasks found to be common across a group of top-performing salespeople in the technology solutions industry. Each job task is further defined by how that task might be applied on the job (this is called evidence). Sales Competency Model for Salespeople in Technology Solutions Evidence Characteristic 1 Sales Activity Employs a systematic, consistent process for sales cycle Maintains high levels of activity in contacting new and existing customers Keeps a full pipeline of customers in various stages of the sales cycle Reports regularly and accurately on sales forecasts 2 Technical and Product Knowledge Demonstrates knowledge of full product line and features Exhibits awareness of competitive solutions in the marketplace

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Evidence Characteristic Pursues sales-appropriate technical skills, achieves relevant technical certifications Displays comprehension of relevant industry technical terminology 3 Solution Selling Expertise Approaches customers to offer solutions, not just sell product Effectively conducts comprehensive needs assessments with customers Able to confidently propose appropriate solutions that meet customer objectives 4 Competitive Excellence Understands performance expectations and requirements Takes active steps to address performance gaps quickly Works to enhance skills through role plays and working with mentors Provides performance activity metrics to manager 5 Business Operation and Financial Acumen Articulates business strategy and company goals Displays knowledge of customer’s business fundamentals Uses business terminology correctly to describe solutions benefits Actively pursues research about customer vertical markets 6 Tactical Planning Actively uses planning tools such as Salesforce, calendars, tickler files Effectively plans and strategizes for customer calls Knows how and when to ‘‘close the deal’’ with the customer Accurately forecasts sales achievements (Continued)

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Sales Competency Model for Salespeople in Technology Solutions (Continued) Evidence Characteristic 7 Time Management and Prioritization Plans effective use of own time to accomplish tasks Starts each day with a clear plan Spends limited time ‘‘fighting fires’’ or crisis management Adjusts schedule based on priority situations as they arise 8 Professional Development Consistently displays a professional demeanor to both co-workers and customers Maintains industry expertise through reading of trade journals, publications, and Internet research Follows an individual continuous education program for professional growth 9 Builds Effective Relationships Within the team, asks questions, expresses concerns, and makes suggestions for process improvements Shares customer challenges with manager in a timely manner Takes active steps to build long-term customer relationships Shares credit for successes 10 Communicates with Impact Uses appropriate grammar and syntax Selects appropriate communications style (face to face, telephone, email) Collaborates with peers to develop ideas and course of action Communicates customer or staff needs and suggestions to relevant others

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Here’s an example of one for a sales management role in the same industry: Sales Manager Competency Model Competency

Evidence Characteristic

1 Strives for Success Employs a systematic method for reviewing and evaluating sales rep performance, sales reports, ride-alongs, customer feedback Sets clear expectations of sales reps’ activities and performance standards Involves sales reps in establishing long-term goals Allocates ample time for sales reps to be trained on key skills 2 Coaching Addresses performance gaps quickly Understands and practices coaching Helps sales reps enhance their skills through role plays, targeted assignments, and working with mentors Provides individually targeted recognition and rewards 3 Business Operation and Financial Acumen Articulates business strategy and scorecard goals Displays knowledge of business fundamentals Uses business terminology correctly Correctly identifies revenue and profit sources 4 Sales Rep Recruitment and Selection Takes active steps to attract top sales talent Utilizes behavior-based interviewing skills 5 Leverage of Technical and Product Knowledge Demonstrates knowledge of full solution offerings Aware of competitive solutions in the marketplace (Continued)

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Sales Manager Competency Model (Continued) Competency

6

7

8

9

Evidence Characteristic

Encourages technical excellence in sales reps, promotes technical certifications Displays comprehension of industry technical terminology Tactical Planning and Project Management Actively uses planning tools such as calendars, tickler files, etc. Clearly advertises team objectives and regularly reviews progress, milestone achievements Accurately forecasts sales, budgeting, and personnel needs Time Management and Prioritization Plans effective use of own time to accomplish tasks Starts each day with a clear plan Spends limited time ‘‘fighting fires’’ or crisis management Adjusts schedule based on priority situations as they arise Leadership and Development Makes timely, effective decisions after gathering adequate information Consistently displays a professional demeanor to both co-workers and customers Maintains industry expertise through reading of trade journals, publications, and Internet research Follows an individual continuous education program for professional growth Builds Effective Relationships Offers opportunities for team members to ask questions, express concerns, and make suggestions Shares information about organizational changes or problems in a timely manner

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Evidence Characteristic

Supports corporate or group decisions, even if not in total agreement Shares credit for successes 10 Communicates with Impact Uses appropriate grammar and syntax Selects appropriate communications style (face to face, telephone, email) Collaborates with peers to develop ideas and courses of action Communicates customer or staff needs and suggestions to relevant others 11 Solution Selling Expertise Conducts effective in-depth account reviews with sales reps Encourages reps to conduct comprehensive customer needs assessments Advocates a culture change from ‘‘box’’ selling to ‘‘solution’’ selling mentality Instead of devising your competency model from scratch, it may be efficient to begin with a sample model such as these and work with a team to customize the model for a specific business environment. Sample models can be purchased from companies that develop models or are sometimes found through professional associations, HR groups, or training organizations.

Using Competency Models to Develop Hiring Profiles In addition to providing the basis for developing training, competency models can be used to develop a hiring profile that will help select qualified candidates. The specific job tasks can be used to develop

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behavior-based questions for applicants. By asking questions about how these tasks may have been done by the applicant in the past, an interviewer can be listening for evidence of the required skill sets. For example, if a competency model is developed and it states that a high level of sales call activity is common to successful people performing this job, an interview question might be framed in a manner to discover whether a potential candidate can produce high sales call activity. The question could be: ‘‘Have you ever had the experience of having to increase sales call activity? If so, how did you go about it, and what were the results?’’ By using the competency model to help develop a hiring profile, new applicants can be examined against a standard that has been proven to be effective in the real-world sales environment. Applicants can gain a better understanding of the job expectations when shown a list of evidence characteristics.

Testing Against the Model Once a solid model has been developed, it can then be used to help identify the problem areas training can affect. Simply put, now that the specific job tasks a top producer performs are identified, how well does our current sales force match up against that ideal? Training professionals who skip this narrowing step often find themselves with far too many objectives for a meaningful program. There is also a high risk of training the sales force on tasks they already do well and diluting the value of the training program. It is important to measure the sales force against the ideal and clearly identify areas of weakness that can be addressed by a targeted training program. There are several methods to test the sales force.

Objective vs. Subjective The most time-consuming method for measuring an existing sales force against the model is to build an objective exam based on the identified competencies. Each question must be written so that it reveals whether or not the examinee is proficient in particular tasks. This can be difficult

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when some of the job tasks include items such as ‘‘addresses performance gaps quickly,’’ but questions can be used to draw out expected responses if the skill is being practiced. Below are some questions that have been used to test against the standard for sales managers. Note how the underlying competency being tested can be seen in the flavor of the question. 1. What are the best ways to monitor sales rep performance? (Select all that apply.) a. Sales reports b. Ride-alongs c. Customer feedback d. Feedback from other employees e. Ask the sales rep during quarterly interviews 2. Which of the following is an example of a clear expectation that a sales manager might set for a sales rep? a. Make a minimum of three appointments with clients each week. b. Dress in proper attire for meeting with clients. c. Check messages on a timely basis. d. Submit expense reports on time. e. Provide updates to the sales manager on a regular basis. 3. The process of analyzing the needs of the business and selecting the assets that will maximize its value is known as: a. Capital budgeting b. Financial management c. Comprehensive budgeting d. Fixed budgeting 4. Where in your office is your business plan posted? (Select one.) a. In my immediate work area b. In a central common area c. In a binder on my desk

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d. On my computer or shared network drive e. I do not post the business plan 5. Which of the following approaches are effective in developing new sales reps? (Select all that apply.) a. Let the sales rep create the person’s own development plan. b. On-the-job training with top performers. c. Encourage the sales rep to work with a sales development manager for coaching as needed. d. Practice product demonstrations in the showroom with someone who can give the sales rep feedback on the demonstration. e. Set a low sales quota to start. 6. Which of the following are valid time management techniques for handling daily work-related tasks such as emails and correspondence? a. Check email frequently throughout the day, as time permits, to be sure to keep current. b. Limit email reading and responding to correspondence to scheduled times each day to prevent interruptions to higherpriority tasks. c. Only respond to urgent, customer-related email; read and respond to other email when business is slow. d. Keep the daily schedule fluid to allow for rapid response to emergencies as they arise during the day. 7. Which of the following are important time management practices that should be part of the normal business day? (Select all that apply.) a. Dedicate time each day to set tasks for the day that are labeled high, medium, and low priority so that important tasks are done first.

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b. Keep planning to a minimum to be able to respond quickly to situations that arise during the day. c. Post a copy of the team’s monthly activity goals in a visible place, so they can be kept in mind during daily tasks. d. Be sure to get enough sleep every night. 8. In a year’s time, how much time should be set aside for sales reps to attend training on skills related to their job? a. One or two days b. Three to four days c. Five to ten days d. It is the sales reps’ responsibility to schedule training on their own time. e. There is no need for formal training; training on key skills can best be handled ‘‘on the job.’’ 9. From the list below, what would be the most appropriate response from you as a manager if your team were faced with a directive from management that is not very popular? a. Sympathize with your team about the unpopular directive and help brainstorm ways that it can be accomplished despite its unpopular points. b. Allow team members to offer feedback and express concerns, but fully support the corporate decision, even if you are not in full agreement. c. Help the team work up viable objections to the directive and present those to your immediate management as additional information. d. Enforce the directive as instructed by senior management. 10. You just reviewed a copy of a letter to a customer from a sales rep and found three mistakes in grammar. Because you are familiar with the account, you are reasonably certain that the customer

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will never notice the mistakes. What course of action would you take? a. Discuss the problem with the rep via email. b. Take no action until you review additional correspondence sent by the sales rep. c. Discuss the problem with the rep in a face-to-face meeting. d. Discuss the problem with the rep over the phone. Another way to test against the model is to ask both the employee and the employee’s manager to rate performance in the specific areas. Although this is a subjective method, it often yields good results if the competencies and evidence characteristics are clearly defined. On the next page is an example of a subjective competency analysis showing where an employee and manager would rate the proficiency level of the various competencies based on the descriptive activities provided. Tip: When time is short or budget tight, it is advantageous to make the initial process simple by listing only the competencies identified and customizing a proficiency rating scale for the particular business environment for which the training program is being designed.

Analyzing the Results Once the exams have been administered and graded or the subjective assessments have been recorded, the comparison can now be made against the ideal. Rank the test scores or proficiency ratings of the various competencies as compiled from the objective or subjective assessments from lowest to highest. Thus revealed is the priority list of the training strategy needed to bring this sales force up a level in performance. The areas in which the sales force scored the lowest highlight the competency gap between the role model and the actual proficiency. Depending on how serious the gaps between the ideal and the actual are, these lists will probably give the top two or three course goals and learning objectives to be covered in a training program. If there is a very significant gap in an area, it may be important to address that one area before any lowerpriority items are addressed.

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2. Productivity

1. Communications

Competency

delivers needed information Keeps communications clear and straightforward; explains technical terms appropriately and succinctly

exhibits a presence that commands attention and respect across organizational levels

applications; knows where and how to locate and utilize Ricoh resources efficiently

standard productivity applications, when needed; can access and competently use advanced productivity

Proficient in the use of

Exhibits a confident, open communication style that encourages dialogue and effectively

Effectively delivers presentations to groups; uses clear, concise written skills;

accomplish goals; coordinates with internal and external partners

Takes advantage of available resources (individuals, processes, departments, and tools) to complete work efficiently and

Displays intermediate level use of advanced applications such as Visio, MS Project, or other applications

Displays expert use of common applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Activities

Skill Expert

Skilled

Unskilled

(Continued)

Proficiency Rating Working Knowledge Unfamiliar

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3. Organizational Skills

Competency

and yearly planning

allocating times and resources to accomplish job tasks; employs time management principles in daily, monthly,

Schedules times appropriately; demonstrates solid project management fundamentals in

Skill Expert

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Proficiency Rating Working Knowledge Unfamiliar Unskilled

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other systems to coordinate and prioritize tasks, schedule meetings, and/or allow others to schedule time with him/her

materials and people needed Uses workable formal planning tools such as Day-Timers, calendars, tickler files, PDAs, or

individuals, processes, departments, and tools) by breaking them down into tasks and appropriately scheduling

milestones; rarely misses deadlines Determines resource requirements needed to accomplish goals (i.e.,

Allocates appropriate amounts of time for completing own and others’ work; avoids scheduling conflicts; develops timelines and

Activities

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4. Customer Focus

customers; takes action to meet customer needs; gathers and implements customer feedback

Seeks to understand both internal and external

when indicated; refers customer feedback to other departments when appropriate

complaints or issues with a sense of urgency and understanding that customers have other options in the market Employs a formal, consistent process for tracking customer feedback; takes corrective action

customer organization and needs and to develop appropriate solutions Efficiently deals with customer

Seeks information to understand

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Is Training the Answer? One caveat to explore at this point is the trap of ‘‘process gaps’’ as opposed to ‘‘knowledge gaps.’’ A sales manager competency model was developed for a business-to-business sales company, and it revealed that the top sales managers all shared a common attribute in that they heavily recruited top talent to their teams. An assessment of the sales manager population as a whole revealed that most sales managers did not use best practices in recruiting top talent, so a training program was developed to teach the sales managers how to recruit in the same fashion used by the top sales managers. The program was launched with much fanfare, but few details until the actual week of the training. As soon as the sales managers realized the focus of the content, they became discontent. As it turned out, they knew the best way to recruit; however, their individual regions had made the decision to outsource recruiting and so the sales managers had no opportunity to use the skills they already possessed. The problem was a process gap, not a knowledge gap. In this case, training was not the solution. To avoid this trap, do some questioning to validate the results of the gap analysis.

Business Impact This is a good time to look at the least performing competency areas and gauge which one or two will have the most immediate business impact if addressed quickly. Assessments provide accurate information that is used to rapidly address problems with an effective, visible, positive change and add credibility to the process. Future training programs benefit from the credibility built on the success of the previous program. It then becomes possible to address longer-term goals and objectives with support from the target audience. Using the competency model method to develop a training strategy is less likely to lead to the creation of training programs that are not in alignment with the needs of the audience, as data is collected directly from the student audience. To make sure this does not happen, be sure

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to verify the competencies against consistent, repeatable, predictable top performers. Once this point in the cycle of the competency model method is reached and at least one problem competency area is identified, the instructional designer should ask the question: ‘‘If we fix this problem competency area, will it generate a business impact to the organization?’’ If the answer is yes, the model has been used successfully. If the answer is no, there is an error in the model and the process reverts back to development of the model.

Creating the Instructional Strategy Since this method involves laying good foundational work at the beginning of the process, it makes the rest of the training development process easier. The designer already has a good learner profile defined in the competency model. This profile can be used to target the best delivery method, determine the length of the training program, and define any constraints of the program. When the specific competency area targeted for improvement is highlighted by the gap analysis, the course goals and learning objectives can be easily defined. Test questions that a successful student of the program should be able to answer are easy to write, since an objective assessment of the competency model would have been reviewed earlier. Finally, the actual course content can be gleaned from the initial group of top performers who helped define the competency model. C A S E

S T U DY

A leading manufacturer of wireless technology started an evolution of their sales strategy. They decided to move their sales force from a traditional hardware reseller model to a solution provider model that would offer their customers not only hardware devices, but configuration and security services. The new model more fully met the needs of their customers and

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greatly improved the profit margin of the average sale (hardware prices had become more compressed). Although a comprehensive training program was delivered to all salespeople at the initial launch of the evolution, it became apparent that only about 20 percent of the sales force was successful making the transition. The other 80 percent continued to rely on hardware-only sales. After ensuring the sales management team was on board with the transition process, a competency model was developed from the 20 percent of successful salespeople. (Note: A handful of salespeople who seemed to excel using unpredictable methods were removed from this model group.) With ten solid competencies defined, the company conducted a sales-force-wide assessment against those competencies. Two areas scored very low, which quickly highlighted the target areas for a remedial training program. The first area, Technical Expertise, was no surprise and would have been the first one picked for a training program based on anecdotal knowledge that many salespeople did not understand the services customers needed. The second area, Time Management, was a big surprise, since it was considered more of a basic business skill, rather than a specific sales skill. What the competency model had shown was that with the longer sales cycle, salespeople who could prioritize tasks, manage their database, and organize their sales calls could take the extra time needed to understand customer needs before offering a proposal. The training group gathered a list of time-saving best practices from the role model group and created an effective time-management module to accompany the technical expertise workshop. The training program delivered as a result of the competency model method had a quick business impact; there was an 18 percent increase in services proposals in the four months following the program launch. In addition, the next two competency areas became the focus of a longer-term project delivered throughout the following year. The bottom line: If relying solely on field research, the Technical Expertise aspect would have been the only topic addressed by the initial training program. Time

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management would never have been addressed, and the organization would have missed out on the increase in service proposals. In a reverse case study, another sales company engaged the services of a training provider to develop a training program for newly hired salespeople. The training provider conducted interviews with sales managers, asking for input on what the training program needed to include. Because newly hired salespeople require additional attention from their manager to answer questions about their benefits, work expectations, and development plans, the sales managers all recommended these elements be covered in training. As requested, the training provided now focused on the sales managers’ concerns and delivered the program on time, on budget. Students graduating from the program no longer bothered their sales managers with questions, but they also failed at making sales, since that was not the focus of their training. Also, because they had no need to develop relationships with their managers, they also did not feel comfortable bringing problems to their attention, and thus turnover increased. By delivering what the sales manager WANTED instead of what the students NEEDED to be successful, the training program had the overall effect of decreasing sales, destroying the effectiveness of sales teams, and increasing turnover. Lesson learned: A good training developer never asks a customer what he or she wants in a training program. He or she asks: ‘‘What business measures do you want to impact with this training program?’’

Summary For many sales companies, it is of vital importance that valuable sales staff time be used on training programs that have a direct bearing on unique needs of the business. Building a competency model and testing the sales force against that model is a reliable way to align business needs with training programs. The competency model method also gives valuable information for hiring profiles and long-term training strategies.

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Questions for Reflection • Have you ever attended a training program that seemed disconnected from the realities of your actual job? How might the training program have been made more relevant using the competency model method? • What job tasks of the sales professional have changed over the last twenty years? What job tasks have remained the same? • How would the job tasks of a salesperson targeting small to midsize businesses be different from those of a salesperson targeting large businesses? • Have you ever interviewed or been interviewed with competencymodel-based behavior questions, as opposed to traditional resume questions? What additional information is gathered from competency-model-based questions that help make a hiring decision?

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4 Develop Sales Reps Using Structured Feedback Kenneth R. Phillips

L

EADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT guru Ken Blanchard, borrowing from a well-known breakfast cereal, describes feedback

as the ‘‘Breakfast of Champions.’’ What’s more, he’s right. When used effectively, feedback can reinforce something a sales rep has done well in order to get the rep to do more of the same, point out an area in which a sales rep’s performance is below expectations in hopes the rep will adjust his or her future performance in order to meet expectations, and let a sales rep know where he or she stands. However, the extent to which feedback is able to fulfill these functions depends on two elements: (1) how accurately a sales rep perceives the feedback he or she receives and (2) the extent to which the rep accepts the feedback and believes that it is an accurate portrayal of his or her past job behavior or performance (Ilgen, Fischer, & Taylor, 1979). 67

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Unfortunately, due to the nature of the job, most sales reps don’t get much effective feedback. There are, of course, the occasional joint sales calls with a sales manager, but often the feedback received focuses on the content of the call (what company products and services the rep discussed with the customer) and not on the process (how well the rep engaged in relationship building, identifying customer needs, exploring possible solutions, etc.). And while feedback on call content is important, it’s no more important than process feedback. Some people might also suggest that sales reps receive feedback each time they make or fail to make a sale. While no doubt this is a form of feedback, it is analogous to someone telling you that you either did a good job or a poor job performing some job task. While hearing that you did a good job makes you feel better than hearing you did a poor job, neither offers much useful feedback. The question in both cases remains: ‘‘What specifically did I do well or poorly so that either I can do more of the same or take corrective action and get back on track?’’ The Sales Skills Assessment–Self and Other that appear later in this chapter are tools to help sales reps obtain specific actionable feedback regarding their strengths and development needs in working with customers. The value of this feedback is that it creates awareness and gives sales reps the ability to see where changes are needed—to identify and break bad habits and become more effective. The assessment consists of forty-two statements divided into seven scales or dimensions. The scales are taken from the Harvard University Competency Dictionary and were chosen by a group of sales managers who saw them as critical to working effectively with customers. A brief description of each scale follows: Building Trust—Interacting with customers and others in a way that gives them confidence in your intentions and those of your organization. Communication— Clearly conveying information and ideas to individuals or groups in a manner that engages them and helps them understand and retain the message.

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Customer Focus— Making customers and their needs a primary focus of your actions; developing and sustaining productive customer relationships. Gaining Commitment— Using appropriate interpersonal styles and techniques to gain acceptance of your ideas or plans, and modifying your own behavior to accommodate the tasks, situations, and individuals involved. Negotiation— Effectively exploring alternatives and positions to reach outcomes that gain the support and acceptance of all parties. Sales Ability/Persuasiveness— Using appropriate interpersonal styles and communication methods to gain acceptance of a product, service, or idea from prospects and customers. Building Strategic Working Relationships— Developing and using collaborative relationships to facilitate the accomplishment of sales goals. Six items describing various skills and behaviors associated with each of these scales were then developed and reviewed by the sales managers. The Sales Skills Assessment–Self and Other that follow are the result. The Sales Skills Assessment–Self may be used by itself or in combination with the Sales Skills Assessment–Other. In either case, it’s important that the results from the assessment be used for development purposes only. Using the assessments for evaluative purposes is likely to compromise the validity of the results, as respondents may be less likely to provide honest feedback. Specific instructions for completing the Self version of the assessment are located with the inventory along with a scoring form, scoring interpretation information, and an action planning exercise. The Sales Skills Assessment–Other is intended for use by sales managers, other sales reps who have first-hand knowledge of a particular sales rep’s approach to working with customers, and a sales rep’s customers. Two critical components in gaining the cooperation of

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respondents to complete the Sales Skills Assessment–Other are (1) to ensure their anonymity and (2) to make sure that they understand the results are going to be used for developmental purposes only. Two techniques for ensuring respondent anonymity are to be sure to collect Other assessments from at least three respondents and to average the scale scores instead of providing the individual respondent scores. A useful technique for ensuring that respondents understand that the assessment results are going to be used for developmental purposes only is to have the target sales rep contact the people being asked to complete the Other version of the assessment and explain to them how the results will be used and what insights the rep hopes to gain from their feedback. Generally, if people know that their individual responses will remain confidential and that the results are being used for developmental purposes only, gaining their cooperation to complete the Sales Skills Assessment–Other and provide honest feedback is not difficult. This is just as true for customers as it is for others within your own organization who possess first-hand knowledge of a particular sales rep’s approach to working with customers. To increase the likelihood that the feedback results are accepted by a sales rep, it is recommended that each rep be given the opportunity to select those people from whom to solicit feedback. Your sales reps themselves are in the best position to identify respondents who know them well enough to provide accurate feedback regarding their approach to working with customers. Allowing the sales rep to make the selections also increases the perceived validity of the feedback results. However, if you are concerned that a sales rep may try to ‘‘stack the deck’’ toward respondents who will only provide favorable feedback, you can have the rep either: (1) select half the respondents and you select the other half or (2) submit a list of names from which you will select a smaller group to receive the Sales Skills Assessment–Other.

Tips for Use It is not recommended that the assessments be used with inexperienced sales reps. Greatest insights occur after a sales rep has developed his or

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her own approach to working with customers (a minimum of six months of calling on accounts by him- or herself). The assessments also are best used on some type of ongoing basis (every twelve to eighteen months) as a way to help sales reps identify any ‘‘bad habits’’ they may have fallen into and to help them create specific development plans for improving their approach to working with customers. The benefit to sales managers for using the assessments is that it takes their feedback out of the realm of ‘‘personal opinion’’ and objectifies it, especially if sales reps are given a hand in selecting the respondents to provide feedback, as described earlier. Moreover, increasing the perceived objectivity of the feedback is also likely to increase its acceptance as an accurate portrayal of a sales rep’s past job behavior or performance.

References Harvard University Competency Dictionary, http://www.hks.harvard .edu/HR/staff/Harvard%20Competency%20Dictionary%20Final %20PDF.pdf Ilgen, D. R., Fischer, C. D., & Taylor, M. S. (1979). Consequences of Individual Feedback on Behavior in Organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 349– 371.

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A Sales Skills Assessment–Self

Note

Developed by Kenneth R. Phillips, Please keep in mind that the results from Founder and President, Phillips this inventory will be helpful to you only Associates, Grayslake, Illinois to the extent that they are an accurate reflection of your actual approach to working with customers. Therefore, it is to your benefit to respond as candidly as possible. Instructions • The inventory consists of forty-two statements which describe a sales rep’s approach to working with his or her customers.

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• Carefully read the first statement. Keeping in mind your own approach to working with customers, indicate how often you engage in the behavior along a continuum from Never to Always. • Place an X in the circle that corresponds to your choice for each statement. Place an X in only one circle per statement. You must make a choice for all forty-two statements in order for the assessment to be scored accurately. • Make your choices based on how you actually behave, not on how you think you should behave.

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Never 1. I keep my promises and commitments, and respond promptly and willingly to customer requests. 2. During sales calls, I listen carefully and periodically repeat back to the customer what he or she has said to test for and confirm my understanding. 3. During sales calls, I actively seek information to gain an understanding of the customer’s stated and unstated business needs, problems, and expectations. 4. When bringing up discussion topics during sales calls, I position them from the customer’s point of view to show that there is value in discussing them. 5. During sales calls, when needed, I negotiate schedules and deliverables with customers. 6. When presenting product or service solutions to a customer, I do so in a manner that clearly shows how the solution would meet a need or solve a problem. 7. I proactively build effective work relationships with my customers by identifying their needs and expectations, clarifying how and when they want to be contacted, and who should be included in our communication. 8. I willingly and appropriately share my thoughts, feelings, and rationale with customers so that they understand my position.

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Never 9. During sales calls, I pause during the conversation to encourage and allow the customer to speak. 10. When working with a customer to solve a problem or meet a need, I follow up to make sure the customer’s needs and expectations are met. 11. During sales meetings, I establish good interpersonal relationships by helping everyone feel valued, appreciated, and included in the discussion. 12. When negotiating with customers during sales calls, I seek a win-win solution that recognizes both the customer’s and my needs. 13. When presenting product or service solutions to a customer, I use an approach that positions the product or service as a viable solution and prevents or minimizes customer resistance. 14. When working on customer projects, I place a higher priority on the project goals than on my own personal goals. 15. During sales calls, I use the customer’s name periodically during the course of our discussion. 16. During sales calls, I periodically summarize what the customer and I are talking about in order to consolidate what has been discussed and move the conversation forward.

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Never 17. My sales approach is characterized as one of being more interested in fully understanding the customer’s needs and problems than in presenting information about my company’s products and services. 18. During sales meetings, I explain how I arrived at conclusions I’ve reached so that others understand the decision and support it. 19. When negotiating with customers during sales calls, I engage in mutual problem solving by exploring alternative positions or approaches and evaluating them openly. 20. During sales calls, I get a complete picture of who all the buying influencers are in the customer’s organization and their personal buying motives (economic, technical, user, etc.). 21. When working on customer projects, I try to build a network of strategic relationships within the customer’s organization. 22. In addition to helping customers solve a particular problem, I am also sensitive to their personal situations and try to understand their needs and concerns. 23. When meeting with customers, I use appropriate non-verbal communication (eye contact, gestures, posture, voice tone, etc.) throughout the discussion.

Always

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Never 24. When engaging customers in a discussion of their needs and problems, I encourage them to do most of the talking by asking questions that are concise and to the point. 25. As customers move toward making a buying decision, I help them think through the criteria and priorities they consider to be the most important. 26. When negotiating with customers during sales calls, I identify the customer’s and my initial position, build common ground by highlighting areas of agreement, and then concentrate on resolving areas of disagreement. 27. During sales calls, I use compelling arguments and techniques to move customers to action or to an agreement. 28. When working on customer projects, I support and encourage a good working relationship between me, the customer, and my company. 29. When discussing solutions to meet a customer need or solve a problem, I accurately and appropriately communicate the strengths and limitations of each solution. 30. When discussing complex ideas or solutions during sales calls, I explain them at a level appropriate to the audience and use terminology to ensure understanding.

Always

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Never 31. When critical decisions need to be made on a customer project, I try to get all the key decision makers together from the customer’s organization to provide input and gain their buy-in. 32. When recommending a product or service solution to address a customer need or problem, I also provide the customer with evidence of the product or service’s effectiveness. 33. When negotiating with customers during sales calls, I also pay attention to the interpersonal process by keeping the discussion focused on the task and constructively addressing emotions and conflict. 34. During sales calls, I adapt my sales approach to match the personal and stylistic preferences of the customer. 35. When discussing project issues during customer meetings, I look for opportunities to expand on previously discussed ideas and seek new ideas from the customer. 36. During sales calls, I actively listen to what the customer is saying and objectively consider his or her ideas and opinions, even when they conflict with my own. 37. During sales calls, I keep the customer engaged and involved through the use of techniques such as analogies, illustrations, stories, humor, and an appealing style.

Always

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Never 38. When working with customers, I look for opportunities to educate them by sharing information and building their understanding of the issues and my company’s capabilities. 39. If a customer is resistant to an approach or solution I’ve recommended, I first try to understand the resistance from the customer’s perspective and then, with customer input, try to find a way to overcome it. 40. During negotiations with customers, I try to build value for preferred alternatives by relating them to the customer’s needs and pointing out problems with undesirable alternatives. 41. When presenting product or service solutions to a customer, I look for opportunities to present multiple options for the customer to consider. 42. When working on customer projects, I regularly assess the strength of the partnership that exists between me and the customer and our ability to attain mutual goals.

Always

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Your Skill Scores Instructions marked a ‘‘3.’’ In this case, you • Listed below are the seven dimensions identified as critical would enter a 3 in the box to working effectively with labeled ‘‘1’’ below. customers. Numbers to the • Total the numerical values on right represent statements from each dimension to obtain your the assessment. Refer back to skill effectiveness scores. statement number one and in • After finding your skill the box labeled ‘‘1’’ below, effectiveness scores on each enter the numerical value of the dimension, total your scores to response you chose for that determine your Overall statement. For example, let’s say Effectiveness. that for statement one you Dimensions

1

8

+

Building Trust 2

9

3

5

12

6

13

+

Sales Ability/Persuasiveness

19

7

20

+ 14

+

21

+

=_________ 40

+ 34

+ 28

+

39

33

27

=_________

+

+

+

38

32

26

=_________

+

+

+

37

31

25

=_________

+

+

+

+

30

24

18

36

+

+

+

+

+

23

17

11

29

+

+

+

+

Negotiation

16

10

4 Gaining Commitment

22

+

+

+

Customer Focus

15

+

+

Communication

Building Strategic Working Relationships

Skill Effectiveness

Statements

=_________ 41

+ 35

+

Add the skill effectiveness scores for each dimension to get your Overall Effectiveness score.

=_________ 42

+

=_________ _________

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What Your Scores Mean The Sales Skills Assessment–Self is designed to assess your use of the skills and behaviors that are essential to working effectively with customers. Your overall effectiveness score will give you a general picture of how well you use these skills and behaviors. This score will range between 210 (most effective) and 42 (least effective). Your skill effectiveness scores will indicate how well you use the specific skills and behaviors associated with each of the seven dimensions. Each of these scores will range between 30 (most effective) and 6 (least effective). The Effectiveness Score Ranges chart below will help you interpret more accurately your overall and skill effectiveness scores. The chart categorizes all effectiveness scores into the ranges of ‘‘Strength,’’ ‘‘Competent,’’ and ‘‘Development Need.’’ Locate your scores on the chart and circle the range of numbers within which each of your

scores fall. The Overall Effectiveness column of the chart will help you better interpret your overall effectiveness scores. The Skill Effectiveness columns of the chart are designed to help you gain a more accurate picture of your strengths and development needs on each of the seven dimensions critical to working effectively with customers. Take a moment to notice whether your scores fall above or below competent. If you have scores that fall into the ‘‘Strength’’ category either overall or on any of the seven dimensions, congratulations! These scores show that you use the skills and behaviors in these areas significantly more effectively than average. On the other hand, if you have scores in either the ‘‘Competent’’ or ‘‘Development Need’’ categories, these identify areas where there is room for improvement, with scores in the ‘‘Development Need’’ category having the highest priority.

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Need

6–16

17–24

Competent

Development

25–30

Strength

Trust

Building

6–16

17–24

25–30

6–16

17–24

25–30

Sales Ability/

6–16

17–24

25–30

6–16

17–24

25–30

6–16

17–24

25–30

6–16

17–24

25–30

42–108

109–175

176–210

Effectiveness

Strategic Working Overall

Building Commitment Negotiation Persuasiveness Relationships

Customer Gaining Communication Focus

Effectiveness Score Ranges

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B Sales Skills Assessment–Other

Instructions

Developed by Kenneth R. Phillips, • The inventory consists of forty-two Founder and President, Phillips Associates, Grayslake, Illinois statements which describe a sales rep’s approach to working with his or her customers. • Carefully read the first statement. Consider the approach to working with customers used by the sales rep you’re providing feedback for, and indicate how often this person engages in the behavior along a continuum from Never to Always.

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• Place an X in the circle that corresponds to your choice for each statement. Place an X in only one circle per statement. You must make a choice for all forty-two statements in order for the assessment to be scored accurately. • Make your choices based on how this sales rep actually behaves, not on how you think he or she should behave.

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Never 1. This sales rep keeps promises and commitments, and responds promptly and willingly to customer requests. 2. During sales calls, this sales rep listens carefully and periodically repeats back to the customer what he or she has said to test for and confirm his or her understanding. 3. During sales calls, this sales rep actively seeks information to gain an understanding of the customer’s stated and unstated business needs, problems, and expectations. 4. When bringing up discussion topics during sales calls, this sales rep positions them from the customer’s point of view to show that there is value in discussing them. 5. During sales calls, when needed, this sales rep negotiates schedules and deliverables with customers. 6. When presenting product or service solutions to a customer, this sales rep does so in a manner that clearly shows how the solution would meet a need or solve a problem. 7. This sales rep proactively builds effective work relationships with his or her customers by identifying their needs and expectations, clarifying how and when they want to be contacted, and who should be included in their communication.

Always

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Never 8. This sales rep willingly and appropriately shares thoughts, feelings, and rationale with customers so that they understand his or her position. 9. During sales calls, this sales rep pauses during the conversation to encourage and allow the customer to speak. 10. When working with a customer to solve a problem or meet a need, this sales rep follows up to make sure the customer’s needs and expectations are met. 11. During sales meetings, this sales rep establishes good interpersonal relationships by helping everyone feel valued, appreciated, and included in the discussion. 12. When negotiating with customers during sales calls, this sales rep seeks a winwin solution that recognizes both the customer’s and his or her needs. 13. When presenting product or service solutions to a customer, this sales rep uses an approach that positions the product or service as a viable solution and prevents or minimizes customer resistance. 14. When working on customer projects, this sales rep places a higher priority on the project goals than on his or her own personal goals. 15. During sales calls, this sales rep uses the customer’s name periodically during the course of the discussion.

Always

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Never 16. During sales calls, this sales rep periodically summarizes what the customer and he or she are talking about in order to consolidate what has been discussed and move the conversation forward. 17. This sales rep’s sales approach is characterized as one of being more interested in fully understanding the customer’s needs and problems than in presenting his or her company’s products and services. 18. During sales meetings, this sales rep explains how he or she arrived at conclusions they’ve reached so that others understand the decision and support it. 19. When negotiating with customers during sales calls, this sales rep engages in mutual problem solving by exploring alternative positions or approaches and evaluating them openly. 20. During sales calls, this sales rep gets a complete picture of who all the buying influencers are in the customer’s organization and their personal buying motives (economic, technical, user, etc.). 21. When working on customer projects, this sales rep tries to build a network of strategic relationships within the customer’s organization. 22. In addition to helping customers solve a particular problem, this sales rep is also sensitive to their personal situations and tries to understand their needs and concerns.

Always

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Never 23. When meeting with customers, this sales rep uses appropriate non-verbal communication (eye contact, gestures, posture, voice tone, etc.) throughout the discussion. 24. When engaging customers in a discussion of their needs and problems, this sales rep encourages them to do most of the talking by asking questions that are concise and to the point. 25. As customers move toward making a buying decision, this sales rep helps them think through the criteria and priorities they consider to be the most important. 26. When negotiating with customers during sales calls, this sales rep identifies the customer’s and his or her initial position, builds common ground by highlighting areas of agreement, and then concentrates on resolving areas of disagreement. 27. During sales calls, this sales rep uses compelling arguments and techniques to move customers to action or to an agreement. 28. When working on customer projects, this sales rep supports and encourages a good working relationship between him- or herself, the customer, and his or her company. 29. When discussing solutions to meet a customer need or solve a problem, this sales rep accurately and appropriately communicates the strengths and limitations of each solution.

Always

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4

5

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Never 30. When discussing complex ideas or solutions during sales calls, this sales rep explains them at a level appropriate to the audience and uses terminology to ensure understanding. 31. When critical decisions need to be made on a customer project, this sales rep tries to get all the key decision makers together from the customer’s organization to provide input and gain their buy-in. 32. When recommending a product or service solution to address a customer need or problem, this sales rep also provides the customer with evidence of the product or service’s effectiveness. 33. When negotiating with customers during sales calls, this sales rep also pays attention to the interpersonal process by keeping the discussion focused on the task and constructively addressing emotions and conflict. 34. During sales calls, this sales rep adapts his or her sales approach to match the personal and stylistic preferences of the customer. 35. When discussing project issues during customer meetings, this sales rep looks for opportunities to expand on previously discussed ideas and seek new ideas from the customer. 36. During sales calls, this sales rep actively listens to what the customer is saying and

Always

1

2

3

4

5

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3

4

5

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Never

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

objectively considers the customer’s ideas and opinions, even when they conflict with his or her own. During sales calls, this sales rep keeps the customer engaged and involved through the use of techniques such as analogies, illustrations, stories, humor, and an appealing style. When working with customers, this sales rep looks for opportunities to educate them by sharing information and building their understanding of the issues and his or her company’s capabilities. If a customer is resistant to an approach or solution this sales rep recommended, this sales rep first tries to understand the resistance from the customer’s perspective and then, with customer input, tries to find a way to overcome it. During negotiations with customers, this sales rep tries to build value for preferred alternatives by relating them to the customer’s needs and pointing out problems with undesirable alternatives. When presenting product or service solutions to a customer, this sales rep looks for opportunities to present multiple options for the customer to consider. When working on customer projects, this sales rep regularly assesses the strength of the partnership that exists between himor herself and the customer and their ability to attain mutual goals.

Always

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

1

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Your Skill Scores Instructions marked a ‘‘3.’’ In this case, you • Listed below are the seven dimensions identified as critical would enter a 3 in the box to working effectively with labeled ‘‘1’’ below. customers. Numbers to the • Total the numerical values on right represent statements from each dimension to obtain the the assessment. Refer back to skill effectiveness scores. statement number one and in • After finding the skill the box labeled ‘‘1’’ below, effectiveness scores on each enter the numerical value of the dimension, total the scores to response you chose for that determine your Overall statement. For example, let’s say Effectiveness. that for statement one you Dimensions

1

8

+

Building Trust 2

9

3

5

+

6

13

+

Sales Ability/Persuasiveness 7

20

+ 14

+

=_________ 39

+

+

=_________ 40

+ 34

+ 28

+

38

33

27

21

+

+

+

=_________

+ 32

26

+

37

31

25

=_________

+

+

+

+

30

24

19

36

+

+

+ 18

12

+

Negotiation

23

17

11

29

+

+

+

+

Gaining Commitment

16

10

4

22

+

+

+

Customer Focus

15

+

+

Communication

Building Strategic Working Relationships

Skill Effectiveness

Statements

=_________ 41

+ 35

+

Add the skill effectiveness scores for each dimension to get your Overall Effectiveness score.

=_________ 42

+

=_________ _________

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Instructions

Action Planning

• Refer back to your Sales 1. What are your overall reactions to your Skills Assessment–Self scores? Effectiveness Score Ranges chart. • Note your highest and lowest scores. • Think about your role as 2. Which results please you most? a sales rep in working with customers and answer the following questions. 3. How would you like to see your scores improved?

4. What steps can you take to improve your scores?

5. What obstacles might keep you from taking the steps listed above and how can you overcome them?

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5 So Many Choices Determining the Right Solution Michael Rockelmann

A

T SOME POINT we all have performance issues and need to determine the appropriate solutions. You may be running short

of your quarterly or annual sales targets; you may have a new CRM or other software or a new product or product enhancements; you have a perceived skill gap, a new sales model you want to introduce; or your people are just not performing to your expectations. Too many times, team leaders rush to implement a training solution based on a gut feeling, only to miss the results they were hoping to gain. Training is the easy answer and you check the box that you did something. But was it the right thing? Or did you just throw money at the problem? No matter what your level in the organization—supervisor, manager, director, or vice president—implementing the wrong solution can cost you time and money, and harm your reputation. Too many times, the 93

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solution implemented is training, when in reality the problem cannot be solved with training, or a long training session is built when a simple, short solution was required. No matter what the issue you are facing, following a tried-and-true approach to analyzing the problem will always put you in a better position to determine the correct solution. This chapter will provide you with a basic process to help analyze your problem and determine the appropriate solution, training or otherwise. I cannot guarantee that you will always arrive at the best solution, but by following the process and answering a set of questions, you are more likely to have success. Be aware that, once you have determined the problem and decided on the best solution, the process does not stop there. If you want to truly be successful and set yourself apart from other sales leaders, you need to stay involved, conduct further analysis, and make additional decisions to ensure you implement the solution correctly. If you determine that training is the right solution, there are a series of questions that will help you successfully create and implement the appropriate training. Part of this process is determining whether you have the internal capability to create the best training solution or whether you should outsource to a vendor. Whatever you choose, following this process will also ensure that what is built meets your criteria and positively impacts your business goals.

Model Overview We will use a basic set of questions to help you determine the real issue and define the right solution to implement. The basic questions fall into three categories, which will be defined in more detail in this chapter. • The Needs Analysis • Outsourcing Decision • Implementing the Best Solution This model is a framework to help you make decisions and ensure alignment to your original business goals. The first set of questions

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helps you determine your needs and isolate the real issue; the second set helps you ensure the right resources are working on the solution; and the last set ensures that you are implementing the best solution. By answering the questions in this order, you should have alignment and a successful solution.

The Needs Analysis What Is the Business Impact or Goal I Am Looking For? There are three main questions you can answer here. Two are not optional, and one is necessary if you need to request funds for the project. 1. What Business Results or Outcomes Do You Need or Expect? This is

the most important question to answer. Every project should lead to a business result—an increase in sales, a rise in customer satisfaction, and so on. Face it, if you were not expecting good results, you would not be taking on this initiative. If you can’t define the business results you expect, then you should ask yourself why you are putting the time and resources into this. Although improved product knowledge or increased sales skills can lead to business results, they are not themselves business results. Be sure to identify why you are undertaking this initiative. Typically, these are some results you might expect: ‘‘To meet our sales goals or $XXX in revenue,’’ ‘‘To increase sales X percent,’’ ‘‘To reach X percent market share.’’ In the case of a new CRM, it may simply be not to negatively impact your sales. Say, for instance, that your sales are slipping and you are 10 percent behind forecast. You need a 15 percent increase on expected sales for the remainder of the year to reach your goal. 2. (If Necessary) What Is Your Expected Return on Investment? What

monetary return are you expecting from the business result? If you are expecting a 10 percent increase in sales, what is the increase in revenue? If you are expecting to rise a point in customer satisfaction ratings, what monetary value will this lead to? This question is difficult and not often

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answered. It is hard to isolate the training as the factor for sales increases. Use this type of information cautiously and only present if it is expected or required to receive the funds. For the example above, you are looking for a 15 percent increase in sales over the remainder of the year. This will give you an exact number to reach. As it is hard to say that one solution alone will solve the problem, be realistic and say this program is expected to help the end result by X percent. 3. What Do Your People Need to Do Differently on the Job to Realize the Business Goal? This is the first step to isolate the real issue. Once you

have identified your expected business results, you can identify what your salespeople need to do to achieve those results. If you know that you want to increase sales, but don’t know how, you may have to conduct a survey of salespeople or look for an outside vendor to help. To answer this question, you review current performance against desired performance. This is where an internal assessment of what salespeople are currently doing that is not leading to your expected results comes in. Are they not closing deals? Not positioning products well? Unable to use the systems correctly? At this point you may need to ask customers for input. You can check on salespeople through surveys, interviews, or focus groups; with the use of job observation; or from formal assessments. Once the required skills and knowledge have been identified, you can perform an analysis against what you expect to determine what training should be provided. Information on the desired state of performance can come from many different sources. It may be based on a competency model, or it may be derived from your salespeople. Even in a project as simple as creating job aids, there should be defined business results and an expected performance. From the results of your research you can identify the skills or knowledge needed to achieve the results you want.

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Can You Do This Alone? You must honestly ask yourself whether you can define the performance gap alone. Many leaders feel they ‘‘know’’ their people and what they need. At times this is true, but more often this is where things tend to go off track. Be aware of your limitations and, if possible, involve others at this point. Even pulling together a few people to discuss the problem can have a positive impact. I was once approached by a senior sales director of one of our most profitable regions. He was known within the company as one of the best leaders and was always on top of the needs of his people. He insisted on delivering a one-day team-building and motivation training program for his salespeople. He insisted that their sales numbers were falling because they weren’t motivated to sell anymore and needed to be reenergized. He knew they could sell and had great skills, but did not understand why their numbers were falling. After some discussion, I received his permission to hold a focus group with a few of his people. In that meeting, I discovered that motivation was not the issue. They still wanted to remain a topselling unit, but they were having problems understanding some of the new products and features and how to position them to customers. While they could sell the old products and knew all of the benefits, they felt that if they knew more about the new products, specifically how to position their benefits, they could sell more. We ended up delivering a one-day course with specific job aids that helped the salespeople understand the new products and features and how to correctly position the benefits. In no time the region was back on top.

Sometimes even a senior manager who typically understands the needs of his people can be mistaken. Involving salespeople in the project can lead to the right solution and can have other positive effects. Having the target audience provide input up-front and contribute to the design

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of a training program can also mean greater buy-in. The audience can also give advice to avoid pitfalls and offer real-life scenarios for the program. Having salespeople on the project team means that you will have ‘‘champions’’ who can deliver your message and build internal commitment to the training program. For our example, we will use the scenario I presented above. Through a series of interviews and focus groups with sales managers and salespeople, you determine that they are getting in front of customers and submitting bids, but they are not closing deals. You expect 50 percent of all bids to lead to closed deals, but you are currently experiencing 40 percent. You have identified your performance gap as the inability of the salespeople to bring a bid to a successful sale. 4. What Is Causing the Gap Between What They Need to Do and What They Are Doing? What Is the Right Solution? At this point you have

identified the business outcome you expect and compared it with what they are doing now. This gives us a performance gap. The next question you need to ask is ‘‘Why are they not performing as we want them to?’’ This is where you make your decision about whether training is the best solution. It is easy to jump into a training solution, but this may not be the right answer. For example, if you say, ‘‘I’ll give you $100 right now if you can do this’’—and they CAN do it—it isn’t a training problem. Have you ever thought, ‘‘We have a problem, so we need a workshop’’? Or read an article or book and said, ‘‘I want that for my people’’? It is easy to fall into offering ‘‘flavor of the month’’ training programs. You must not take the easy way out, but continue to search for the right answer. According to Tom Gilbert’s Behavior Engineering Model (BEM), performance issues can be categorized into the following six groups: • • • •

Consequences, incentives, or rewards Data, information, and feedback Environmental support, resources, and tools Individual capacity

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• Motives and expectations • Skills and knowledge Of the six categories, the only one that can be resolved by training is lack of skills and knowledge. The others may require different changes. If your salespeople have the skills and knowledge to perform as expected, then something else is the problem. If you want to be successful, take the time to find out what is really causing the performance gap. Consequences, Incentives, or Rewards. Do your salespeople have the correct

incentives or rewards to achieve the performance you want? Are there consequences to them not performing? Often sales incentives are based on volume and not on profit; if your goal is to increase profit, or your performance gap identified salespeople not closing profitable deals, then you may want to change your incentives. Do not overlook consequences. Human behavior drives all of us to complete work in ways that result in the least negative consequences. Make sure the incentives to perform are greater than the consequences of not performing. It is very typical to raise goals or give extra work to high performers; this can be seen by them as a negative consequence of success. Problems in this area can typically be solved by changing incentives or pay structure. If you do not have the right incentives, work with your HR or compensation expert to determine what is needed to drive the results you want. Data, Information, and Feedback. Often people have the skills and knowledge

to perform, but they do not have the data, information, or feedback they need. Ensure your salespeople have the customer and product data they require to complete their jobs successfully. Have they been given feedback that they are not meeting expectations? Salespeople need to receive feedback on their performance. People want to be successful, and may not even realize they are not meeting expectations. Problems in this area can typically be solved by providing the essential data salespeople need to perform their jobs and the correct

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data and feedback on their performance. Job aids, manager feedback, and coaching can resolve issues. If manager feedback is required, ensure the managers understand exactly what performance is required and are coaching to the right skills. Environmental Support, Resources, and Tools. Do salespeople have the

support, resources, and tools to be successful? Has a cut in the sales support function hurt their ability to complete their tasks? Is the territory or customer base too large for one person? Do they have a CRM to help them? Do they have tools that provide essential product information to make a sale? Answers to these types of questions will help you determine whether you have issues in this area. Often people have the skills and knowledge, but their environment does not support them to be successful. Frequently, providing support systems, job aids, and sales tools, or even an organizational or job realignment, can resolve issues in these areas. Individual Capacity. Is each person capable of successfully completing his or

her job? This is typically one of the hardest questions to answer, as some issues of individual capacity cannot be solved with training. We have all known someone who just cannot perform the expected job. No matter how much training the person receives, the job is not the correct fit for his or her abilities. At times we need to make the tough decision that a hiring mistake was made or a job promotion has put someone in a position in which he or she cannot be successful. If one or two people are struggling, then it could be individual capacity. However, if your entire sales organization is not performing as expected, it is probably an organizational issue. It is important to work with your human resources representative if you feel you have an issue with individual capacity. Motives and Expectations. Do your salespeople understand what is expected

of them, and are they motivated to complete the work? These are tough questions that require a hard look at how the team is being led. Leadership is key in solving any performance issues in this area.

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Many leaders feel that, if they communicate sales goals and have a good incentive program, people will perform. Human behavior does not just peak in the presence of incentives. People need to feel part of an organization and they want to follow a strong leader. Employees want to have a good understanding of organizational goals and how they fit into the bigger picture. Much research on what motivates people is available. We must motivate people and communicate their value to them. We must also communicate expectations. We must be clear, not only about sales goals, but about how we expect people to meet those goals. Performance issues in this area can be solved only by focusing on leadership and communication. Are you unwittingly part of the problem? Take a realistic look at yourself and the other leaders of the sales force. We all want to feel we are good leaders and have communicated well, but have you really communicated your expectations? Saying ‘‘I expect you to reach $X’’ is not enough. You must also communicate ‘‘This is what I am looking for because . . . .’’ Knowing ‘‘why’’ can have a greater impact. Look at your entire leadership team. Do the managers know what they are looking for? Have they clearly communicated that to the team? Have you communicated it to them? Skills and Knowledge. Do people have the correct skills and knowledge to

perform their jobs? Can they follow the sales process? Do they understand the product, its features, and benefits so that they can properly position it to meet customers’ needs? Do they know how to use the tools required to complete their jobs? Problems in this area, if present, can be solved with training. The bottom line: If the problem is with skills and knowledge, some type of training intervention is required, but it is not quite that easy. You still must determine the correct solution. Often performance issues do not fit neatly into one category. You will need to address each issue in order to be successful. Adjusting incentives, providing tools and resources, and setting clear expectations may also be required.

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The rest of this chapter will focus on moving forward with a training program once you have determined that lack of skills or knowledge is the issue. You should not forget about the other performance categories, however. Going back to our example, let’s say that you have determined that the reason people are not moving bids to closed deals is a lack of knowledge of the benefits of new enhancements to the product. Your salespeople can sell and everything else is in place, but they need to better position the product.

Outsourcing Decisions 5. Do You Have the Internal Resources to Build a Program, or Should You Outsource? After completing your needs analysis, the next step is to

conduct an internal assessment of resources to determine whether you should look inside or outside for trainers or use a combination of both. This decision is usually based on factors, including, but not limited to, time, resources, money, expertise, and audience acceptance. If you decide to buy outside, more questions must be answered: • • • •

What do we need to outsource? What supplier should we use? Should we use off-the-shelf or customized training? Should we use internal or external trainers?

Even if you decide to build a program internally, there are still many questions to answer: • • • •

Who are the content experts? Do I have a selling model? How will I design the course? Who is the best internal trainer for the job?

You can outsource any or all of the four basic areas of a training program—needs analysis, identification of the content, course design, or delivery. If you could not answer the first four questions in the process outlined in the sections above to determine what the real need is, you

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should consider outsourcing the needs analysis, but if you made it this far and feel confident in your assessment, then you can look at potentially outsourcing the course design and delivery. When you consider the content of the course, think about who the experts are. If product information is required, your internal resources may be able to provide the training. If the course comes from a vendor, then why re-create something that exists? If you need to use a packaged program, then consider what outside vendors offer and compare that to how you expect salespeople to use the system. (Straight-out-of-the-box training may differ from what you need, which could result in more performance issues.) If you have the internal expertise, the next decision is to determine who should build the training. Not everyone can put together effective training. You may have an internal training department that can help with the design of a course, but you may want to consider outsourcing the design of this particular course. Many vendors can provide design expertise and work with your internal experts. You have put a lot of time into defining your need; do not throw out that work by implementing an ineffective solution.

Implementing the Best Solution Most people stop at this point and hand off the course to the training department or a vendor. In my experience with leaders in Sales and across organizations, the leaders who stay involved end up with more successful solutions. This is especially true with outsourcing. People believe consultants have all the answers, but leaders who are involved can ensure that a vendor delivers a great product. You do not have to answer the remaining questions yourself, but your involvement in the process will add to the success of the solution and to your personal success. Your support can be integral for the acceptance of the program by your team. As I said before, people want to follow a great leader; being the visible ‘‘owner’’ of a project can help with its implementation and adoption.

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6. What Knowledge or Skills Do People Need to Perform Differently? After

you have completed your analysis of the performance issue and decided who can build and implement the solution, the next step is to define what your people need to learn. Define the objectives of the course, and identify the knowledge or skills participants should leave the course with. You have determined what people are doing now, what you want them to be doing in the future, and what they need to accomplish this. Alignment to the business goal is key: • In order to reach our sales goal, our salespeople need to better position products. • In order to better position products, our salespeople must know the key features and benefits of the products and how to position these to our customers. Once you have identified your objectives, you need to decide how to deliver the information. This is another decision point for you. You may determine that a formal training program is not needed. It may be as simple as a communication, a presentation by a manager in a meeting, or some type of job aid if information is needed. For our example above, in order to fully understand the key features and benefits of a product and to position them for customers, we need a short class to ensure understanding, and we need a job aid for them to use in sales meetings to ensure this is done well. 7. What Are the Needs of the Audience, and How Will Those Be Met?

Defining the needs of the participants and how they prefer to learn is often overlooked. Finding answers to these questions helps you decide what you want the training experience to be like for participants. You may have decided that the knowledge can be transferred by a manager in a sales meeting. Or you could have decided that a class is needed. Either way, you must know the atmosphere that would be most effective for the training. For example, an eight-hour lecture would not be appropriate for a sales group that is used to communicating and being active.

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Here you assess the audience, which helps define what you want people to feel when they leave training. The information you gain will also help you to design the course or aid you in finding an appropriate vendor. Many people skip this step or do not give it enough thought. The content, material, and experience of the training are all critical. We have all been to training programs in which the content is important and will help us on the job, but the delivery is less than exciting. We sit and listen to the best of our ability, but just cannot seem to be engaged. We may also have been to training programs in which it was an exciting and motivational experience, but in the end we are not sure what we should have taken away and applied on the job. A basic requirement for all training is that it be interactive and fun. Salespeople, even more than other learners, do not like to sit and listen for extended periods. They like to try what they are learning and apply it immediately. They are often competitive, so working in some games or activities that include competition can engage them as learners. 8. How Will the Skills and Knowledge Be Taught to Ensure That Participants Learn? In the last section you decided what the feel of the course would

be; now you are looking at how the content will be taught to ensure learning and to meet the needs of the audience. You don’t have to be a training expert to realize what is needed to ensure learning. Think back to classes you have taken. For an effective course, why was it effective? What did you do that helped you learn? For an ineffective course, why was it ineffective? Why didn’t you learn? There are a few basic elements of effective training. As a leader, you can ensure the course will be effective. You can positively influence the outcome. Here are some simple rules to follow: • Keep people engaged. Start by letting them know why it is important and continue engaging them with interesting activities and reallife applications. • Tie back to their jobs. Always relate the training to how they will apply it on the job.

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• Make time to apply the knowledge and skills and receive feedback. This will help ensure participants learn and remember the correct skills. • Training should be fun, interactive, and with varied activities. Don’t simply do the same things over and over. 9. What Assistance Will Be Provided Back on the Job to Help People Perform Differently? This may be the most important question to ask.

Learning does not end in the classroom, but all too often, it does not continue to the workplace. Even the best training program can lead to no results. To make any program successful, ensure that people have what is needed to transfer the skills back to the job. By building these into your program, you can better ensure transfer to the job and see the change in performance you are expecting. Thinking back to Gilbert’s Behavioral Engineering Model, some of these elements can impact transfer back to the job. Be sure to look at each of them when implementing your solution. • Consequences, incentives, or rewards. If I have taught new skills, are people rewarded for using those new skills? Don’t overlook the negative consequences. Will changing their behavior actually cause their jobs to be more difficult? • Data, information, and feedback. Ensure that your salespeople will have the data, information, and feedback to know whether they are now performing as you expect. This may involve teaching your managers the new process or expectations and how to provide the necessary feedback. • Environmental support, resources, and tools. Does the environment support the use of the new skills and knowledge? Do employees have the resources and tools to perform differently? You can provide them with job aids during the training to help application on the job. • Individual capacity. At times you have to face the reality that some people will not be able to make the change. Be honest

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with yourself and your team and look at the possibility that some people do not have the capacity to perform as you expect. • Motives and expectations. Ensure your salespeople know what performance you expect from them and why they attended training. Show them the big picture and be honest about why a change is needed. Again, most people want to have outstanding performance, so let them know how you define it.

Summary This chapter contains a lot of information, and the process may appear to be overwhelming. The basic point is to remember to complete your due diligence in defining performance issues before deciding on a solution. It is also important to answer the questions to ensure you have implemented a solution that is aligned with your business goals. The process we outlined contained three areas and eight or nine questions to answer. Here it is in outline form. The Needs Analysis 1. What Business Results or Outcomes Do You Need or Expect? 2. What Is Your Expected Return on Investment (If Necessary)? 3. What Do Your People Need to Do Differently on the Job to Realize the Business Goal? 4. What Is Causing the Gap Between What They Need to Do and What They Are Doing? What Is the Right Solution? Outsourcing Decision 5. Do You Have the Internal Resources to Build a Program, or Should You Outsource? Implementing the Best Solution 6. What Knowledge or Skills Do People Need to Perform Differently?

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7. What Are the Needs of the Audience, and How Will Those Be Met? 8. How Will the Skills and Knowledge Be Taught to Ensure That Participants Learn? 9. What Assistance Will Be Provided Back on the Job to Help People Perform Differently to Reach Your Goal? The most important takeaways from this chapter are • Have a good understanding of the process, including the types of answers you require for each question. • Put time and energy into a needs analysis to ensure you understand the problem. Be honest with yourself about what you do and do not know about the problem. Do not try to make all the decisions yourself. Include others if possible. • Make sure you have the right internal or external resources working on the project. Don’t be afraid to outsource if necessary. • Do not stop the process at implementation. If you want to be successful and set yourself apart as a leader, stay involved, ensure you implement the best solution, and be the champion of the program. • Don’t fall into the trap of believing that consultants have all the answers. Be involved in defining what skills and knowledge must be taught, how the needs of the audience will be met, and how the training will teach the content. • Most important, define what is needed to ensure people perform as you expect back on the job. By following this process and staying engaged to answer all of these questions, you can ensure the increased performance of your team. Questions for Reflection • Have you implemented a training solution in the past that did not achieve the expected results? What might have helped you achieve the results you were looking for?

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• Are you currently facing a performance problem? What will be your next steps in finding a solution?

Bibliography Gilbert, T. F. (1996). Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance. Amherst, MA: HRD Press/ISPI.

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6 Capabilities The Engine That Drives Success Maria Edelson

I

NDIVIDUALS AND LEADERS invest countless hours on devel-

oping a vision and a mission, setting goals, making choices, determining business tactics, and devising financial measures to support business plans. But how much time is spent determining whether your organization is able to actually do what you are planning to do? In other words, does your organization have the knowledge, skills, and overall capability to deliver the business results? Successful organizations understand the critical link between the strategic business plan and the capability development program for the organization. In today’s economic environment, everyone needs to understand and obtain the skills needed to deliver business results.

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WHAT IS A C APABILITY D E V E LOP M E N T P R O G R A M ? Simply stated, it is a program designed to ensure that an organization has the skills and knowledge to deliver what is promised in the business plan.

A well-thought-out capability development program integrated into the fabric of the enterprise’s business plan enables strategic choices as the engine that drives an organization to surpass expectations. It is an investment in the business that pays dividends over and over again. This chapter outlines a practical process for building a capability development program for your organization. Developing models for the competencies your organization needs and assessments to help figure out where skill gaps exist are covered elsewhere in this book. The author of this chapter assumes that you either have a competency model and have done an assessment, or that you have a plan to accomplish this. So with that information in hand, you need to decide what the goals and objectives of your capability development program should be. What does the organization need to know and to be able to do today and in the next three to five years? Where do you want to be as an organization? In other words, you need a destination.

What’s Your Destination? Determining the Goals and Objectives of Your Capability Development Plan Where do you begin to devise the goals and objectives for your capability development plan? There are many ways to find answers to this question. You could: 1. Do a gap analysis. Using the assessment data, identify the lowest scoring skills. These represent the biggest gaps and obviously should be given a priority, right?

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2. Survey senior managers to determine what they think the development goals or skills for the organization should be. 3. Identify industry trends or ‘‘hot topics’’ and focus on one of these as a goal—hoping that you identify the right trend at the right time. While each of these approaches may provide some good information, how can you be sure that these will address the needs of your business? I submit to you that every successful capability development program’s goal and objective should be exactly the same, regardless of the industry or business. The goal and objective should be to ensure that the organization has the knowledge and skills to deliver the business goals. The operative words in that sentence are NOT knowledge and skills. The operative words in that sentence are deliver the business goals. Capability development plans must START by asking the question, ‘‘What are the enterprise’s goals and what strategies are they employing to deliver the goals?’’ After starting with the business goals, work backward to identify what skills and knowledge the organization must have. You may quickly find out that a skill gap doesn’t matter because perhaps that skill isn’t critical to deliver the business goal. Maybe it is more important to take a skill that the organization is quite good at, a strength, and drive it to excellence to achieve business goals. The key is to be able to identify which skills and what knowledge are critical to deliver the desired success. This is no easy task, in part because you need to plan both for today and for tomorrow. You need a process to deconstruct the goal and thereby determine leadership’s strategic choices. Remember, strategies are nothing more than resource allocation choices. So what choices has leadership made for resource allocation? A thorough analysis of the strategic choices will uncover what company leadership thinks is important and directionally where they are headed. Once you have a sense of the strategies and resource allocation, your job is to make sure the organization has the skills and knowledge to do the work that leadership deems important in both the short and longer term. This can be real ‘‘heavy lifting’’ because you need to assess which

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skills are crucial to successfully deploy the strategies that will deliver the goal in the short term while still planning for longer-term goals. Are the needed skills well developed, or are they skills that the organization has never developed because they haven’t been crucial in the past? Let me give you a sales example. In the CPG industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most sales organizations were asked by the enterprise to deliver top-line volume as measured by cases sold. The environment was simple: high frequency, transactional sales calls. The skills required were simple (by today’s standards): to create a presentation focused on benefits, not features, and to be able to overcome objections and close the sale. Suddenly, team selling became a phenomenon. In addition to traditional salespeople, other people in the organization started to ‘‘sell’’ the customer—like finance or logistics managers. The plethora of data available and the need to transform the data into information and knowledge also changed the game for traditional salespeople. And finally, the shift in the balance of power from manufacturer to retailer created the need for salespeople to invest the effort to better understand customer needs. Internally, companies were now expecting more from their salespeople than just cases sold. Company goals for their sales organizations expanded to be profitable cases, and they wanted to be able to measure the return on their investment. Since sales goals changed, so did sales strategies (resource allocations). There was a new focus on ‘‘category management’’ and creating deeper customer understanding. Resources were being allocated to market research and category management analysis. There were also new measures and tracking systems installed to measure profit and ROI. Bottom line, CPG salespeople needed a whole lot of new skills. Really progressive CPG companies recognized that these new goals and strategies required new skills. Many companies revised their competency models to add skills like ‘‘financial acumen,’’ ‘‘data analysis,’’ and ‘‘understanding customer needs’’ to their competency models.

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Business and technology have been evolving quickly ever since. Most successful sales learning and development programs now start with the enterprise’s goal and strategies for the sales organization and then identify the skills needed to deliver on these goals and strategies. Following this process of beginning with enterprise goals and working backward will inevitably lead you to three to five skills from your competency model that should be the focus of your capability development program. These are the skills that will ensure the organization can deliver the short- and long-term goals of the enterprise.

Developing the Capability Development Plan So now you have the process for identifying the capability development plan goal and the key skills and knowledge your organization needs to deliver its business goals. The next step is to develop a comprehensive plan—a roadmap—to take your organization from where you are today to where you need to be tomorrow and three to five years from now. The best capability development plans I’ve experienced include the following three key components: • Transparency: This means that everyone across the organization is familiar with the plan and knows how it works. Ideally, everyone is also crystal clear on his or her role in the deployment of the plan. • Holistic Approach: The plan is a continuing, ongoing effort with follow-up steps built in. It includes adequate preparation and pre-work, ‘‘in-person’’ sessions, and then on-the-job follow-up. • Line Leader Involvement: Line leaders and management are actively engaged in the deployment of the plan. When the line leaders are involved in training their organization, they are typically more personally invested in the outcome. Employees see this dedication and are more likely to buy in as well. Now let’s take a closer look at each of these three elements, including examples.

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Transparency It is critical that everyone in the organization knows the plan and understands what it means to him or her personally. When employees understand how the plan can benefit them, by making them more effective or building their capacity to improve their work/life balance, they will be willing and active partners with you to bring the plan to life. Tips 1. Make sure that a good communication or marketing plan is not the final stage in building a development plan. It might be the final step to be executed, but it certainly shouldn’t be the last step to be thought about. It must be included throughout the process so that it is comprehensive. 2. Specifically document your capability plan choices and ‘‘brand’’ them. One example is to refer to the choices in your plan as a ‘‘go to market’’ strategy and broadly communicate it. 3. The best marketing plans are multi-faceted and include the opportunity to deliver the message several times. This is especially the case with a new plan. The average recipient needs to hear a message seven times before he or she begins to adopt it. 4. It’s also powerful to use different delivery methods. For example, use email for a quick first introduction. Follow up with a hard-copy mailing. When possible, use videoconferencing or inperson meetings to communicate the importance of this new capability plan. Of course, the most powerful delivery is direct messaging from the line leader. Use this approach whenever possible.

Holistic Approach When developing your plan, be sure to leverage adult learning principles. Figure 6-1 is a model that depicts a simple but effective three-pronged approach to building competency.

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Figure 6-1. Three-Pronged Approach to Building Competency

Go to Market Strategy Three-Pronged Approach to Building Competency 1 Transfer Knowledge eLearning Informative Engaging Interactive Interesting

2 In-Person Practice

3 On-the-Job Application Expectations Demonstration Feedback Critiques Practice

Transfer Knowledge. First things first, there is usually a knowledge transfer

requirement before we can engage in skills training. One of the most effective and efficient ways to transfer knowledge is online training. Technology has become a tremendous enabler of training—when used properly and appropriately. However, if web-based training is not feasible, there are always hard copy or preparation exercises to enable knowledge transfer. In-Person Practice. Second is the acknowledgement that skill training is really

all about PRACTICE. If someone has read about how to swing a golf club or, better yet, watched a video on how to swing a golf club, do you think he can successfully play golf? Probably not. The person needs to practice his swing, take a few lessons with a golf pro, and go to the driving range before he can expect to have a successful game. Similarly, after acquiring the knowledge, we need in-person training time to practice with someone who can give coaching and constructive feedback. A common mistake many training programs make is to use inperson sessions to transfer knowledge instead of practicing skills. The

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participants spend their valuable ‘‘together time’’ sitting in a semi-dark room listening to the presenter drone on, reading one PowerPoint slide after another. Once the learners have the necessary knowledge, they can come to the in-person session ready to practice what they learned. The most effective in-person sessions use adult learning principles—highly interactive and therefore very engaging sessions in which individuals learn by doing and benefit from experienced coaching and balanced feedback. Examples of using these principles go from using simple role plays all the way to building custom simulations. There are a lot of possibilities in between, including learning maps, games, table exercises, ‘‘off-the-shelf’’ simulations, and interactive scenario competitions. All of these techniques give learners the opportunity to practice their skills and receive valuable and balanced feedback from a coach or trainer. On-the-Job Application. If the new knowledge and skills are not applied

on the job—the sooner the better—the previous work is for nothing. Follow-up is critical! There are many ways to check on the job application of skills; for example, contact by the immediate manager in the field, weekly follow-up conference calls with peers or trainers, webinar followups, or on-the-job follow-ups with trainers. The most effective follow-up is in the field, where someone can observe the skill in use and provide in-the-moment coaching, suggestions, and direction. However, if this isn’t possible another alternative that reinforces the training is a benefit.

Line Leader Involvement How do you build in line leader involvement? Often this is a sticking point in an organization. Training is delegated to trainers or to HR. I’ve often heard the excuse that line leaders are too busy or have more important work to do. But the fact remains that line leaders often have the most impact and get the best results because they have the experience to share as they build the capability of their organizations. No one is better positioned to teach salespeople how to be more effective than their immediate managers who usually have more experience

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calling on bigger and tougher customers using the skills at a much higher level of proficiency and sophistication. The ideal scenario is to have line leader involvement as frequently as possible throughout the capability development process. There is a role for the line leader throughout the process. Figure 6-2 captures the possibilities for line leader involvement.

Figure 6-2. A Market Strategy for Line Leader Involvement

Go to Market Strategy Line Leader Involvement Pre-Program Preparation Expectation Review Interact Engage Involve

Trainer/Moderator

Post-Program Follow-Up Expectations Demonstration Feedback Critiques Practice

So far we’ve discussed the linkage between business goals and success through the development of a capability development model and the resulting components of the plan to impart the skills needed to deliver the business results desired. We’ve also covered the importance of directly involving the line leaders in this process. From my experience, it’s imperative to keep leaders engaged at each step of the way. Pre-Program Preparation. Ideally, the line leader sets expectations for the

training. Is this part of the individual’s personal capability plan, or will this training build proficiency to deliver a specific strategy? Is this building a strength or shoring up a weakness? The line leader needs to be sure the individual knows WHY he or she is attending training, WHAT he or she must get out of the training, and HOW it can be applied to the daily work. Best-in-class programs send out line leader and participant prework about three weeks before the training. This information clearly

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communicates the role the leader should take and what the participants should expect to discuss about the event with their line leaders prior to the event. Trainer/Moderator. The very best in-person training events are led by line

leaders, not professional trainers. They serve as the moderators, deliver the keynotes, run the workshops, are the buyers in the simulations and role plays, and provide the balanced feedback and coaching. The bottom line: they are the role models the participants look up to and want to emulate. Tip: There are many arguments to make a case for using professional trainers: consistent delivery, no prep time or out-of-office time for line leaders, and so on. Often, however, the professional trainers haven’t done the job of the participants or don’t have experience in the business. Line leaders are generally much more experienced, have sophisticated skills, and are usually more successful than the participants. Plus, when the line leader speaks, everyone listens, so there is a higher adoption rate coming from the line leader. An example: Having account executives run a university session for account managers is powerful. The account execs have done the work of account managers and can often share stories that relate how-to techniques based on real-life job experiences. This is what participants remember when they return to their jobs! Post-Program Follow-Up. In the perfect world, the line leaders own the

follow-up from in-person training sessions. They are responsible for checking in with the participants to determine whether the training met the participants’ expectations. They should discuss how the participants will put their new knowledge and skills to use on the job and how they will change their behavior as a result of this training. Best-in-class programs send out follow-up reminders to line leaders about three weeks after the session. These remind them to contact their direct reports to (1) see whether the session met their original expectations, (2) discuss immediate on-the-job application, and (3) set

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up a session for the line leader to observe the new behaviors/skills and provide coaching. This should come as no surprise to the participants, as this is coordinated with their follow-up. Ideally, the follow-up should continue as long as the relationship between the line leader and participants exists. Ongoing On-the-job training is a cornerstone of classic sales training. Tip: On-the-job sessions are critical. If line leaders can’t find the time to moderate a training program, work to build a culture in which line leaders train with their direct reports on the job. The rewards are more than worth the effort and the time.

Summary I am absolutely confident that any organization, large or small, can build and execute a capability development program. And more importantly, I have seen the results. Organizations with well-designed and wellexecuted capability development programs can win in both the short term and long term by meeting and often exceeding their enterprises’ business goals. Building a successful capability development program begins with understanding the business goals, objectives, and strategies for an organization. Once these are understood, it’s time to work on developing a goal (destination) for your capability development program. Once the goal is determined, create a capability develop plan (roadmap) with ways for your organization to build the capabilities needed to deliver the organizational goals. Successful capability development plans have three key elements: transparency, a holistic approach, and engaged line leaders. This process works regardless of whether you are at a Fortune 100 company or a small-cap company. To ensure your success, I recommend that you do three things: 1. Align a key, influential business leader. Identify the one or two influential leaders in the organization who are innovative and

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agile. Share the vision and ‘‘what could be.’’ Directly ask for their support for a pilot or test. 2. Enroll others in your vision. Don’t just depend on an influential leader; start a ground swell of support. Engage and excite your peers and those in the organization who would benefit from this and encourage them to volunteer to be part of a test. 3. Pilot and test. Be sure to quantify the potential benefits as you set up a pilot or test so the results are achievable and measurable. Questions for Reflection • Does your organization have a capability development model or plan? If so, is it linked to the business goals? • Does your sales force have the skills and knowledge necessary to achieve the business plan? Do they have the skills they will need five years from now? • What has sales management identified as the top training needs of the organization? • What is the cost to train on these topics? • What is the cost to NOT train on these topics?

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7 Making Training Stick Get Them to Use It Susan Onaitis

T

HE MANTRA OF every professional sales trainer I know is

‘‘Training is not a one-time event.’’ Training is a process that requires accurate assessment, careful instructional design, effective implementation, and continuous follow-up. Even the earliest pioneers in the field of education knew that repetition and reinforcement were required for long-term retention. Most learners don’t get it the first time they hear new information or learn new skills. Reinforcement, follow-up, and coaching are required for training to have the impact you want. This is true for both formal and informal training. In this chapter we will examine ways to make sure your training sticks and that your learners put what they learn into action. It’s not just about what you do in the classroom, on the job, or during the online course, but also what happens before and after the training. 123

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Of course, sales managers play a pivotal role in the effectiveness of an organization’s training process. In Chapter 10, Rick Wills takes an in-depth look at how managers impact the application of learning on the job. In this chapter we will focus on steps that can be taken before, during, and after training to reinforce the learning. We will also share some ideas for ways you can integrate learning into your organization’s culture at any time. But let’s start by looking at why reinforcement is so crucial to the success of training.

Why Is Reinforcement Necessary? Remember the old joke that poses the question: ‘‘How do you get to Carnegie Hall?’’ The answer is practice, practice, practice. We’ve all heard it a hundred times. Practice makes perfect. Yet many executives continue to operate under the misconception that if their people have been trained, they should know it and use it. Unfortunately, that’s not how the real world works. And it is not how the human mind works. Today scientists have studied the human brain like no other generation before did. They have linked the chemical and genetic makeup of the human body to memory, both long- and short-term. Memory plays an important role in our ability to retain and recall information. It is the ability to retain and recall learning that allows the salesperson to access the skills or information he or she needs to deal with particular client situations in a more effective way. In order for a salesperson to retain what he or she has learned in a classroom or online, he or she must see a purpose for that information. The training must be relevant to participants. We’ll talk more about that when we get to the things you can do during training to make sure it sticks. Salespeople also need to be able to interpret and apply the information. And in order to successfully apply what they are learning, they must be able to practice a number of times during the learning experience. Repetition leads to retention.

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How Much Repetition Is Required to Learn? There is no easy answer to that question, according to Dr. Will Thalheimer, president of Work-Learning Research, Inc., a Massachusettsbased company that studies ways to make learning more effective in the workplace. ‘‘What we do know is that more repetitions are better and that spacing the repetitions over time will result in better retention over the long term,’’ he said in a recent interview. How much time? ‘‘In a ninetyminute e-learning module, repetition of learning points is good every ten minutes or so. Managers are overly optimistic about their people’s ability to remember. Spacing the repetitions helps minimize forgetting,’’ according to Thalheimer, who recommends teaching a bit about topic A, then some about topic B, then a little about topic C, then going back to topic A. The spacing effect was first identified by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus in his 1885 book on the study of memory. His basic finding was that spacing learning over time produces substantial benefits, especially long-term retention of learning (Ebbinghaus, 1885). Dr. Thalheimer recommends that organizations change the definition of a learning event to include the idea that learning takes place over time. It doesn’t just happen in one classroom event or during one online course or one coaching session by the manager. ‘‘All the research indicates that repetition and reinforcement over a period of time are vital to long-term retention of knowledge and skills,’’ says Dr. Thalheimer.

Carrot or Stick: Which Reinforcement Works Best? If you have ever trained a pet using treats or raised a toddler using smiles and kisses, you know the value of positive reinforcement. And if you have ever had to ‘‘ground’’ a teenager or take away cell phone rights for a week, you have undoubtedly seen the effects of negative reinforcement. It’s that old carrot or stick approach that motivates animals and humans

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toward the results you want. So when it comes to reinforcing learning, which one works best with your salespeople? Aubrey Daniels, behavior analyst and author of Bringing Out the Best in People, says ‘‘Positive reinforcement maximizes performance, while negative reinforcement gets a level of performance that is just enough to get by—just enough to escape or avoid some unpleasant consequence’’ (Daniels, 2000). What does that mean for you before, during, and after a training program if you want to see meaningful results? It means that the learner needs positive recognition when he tries a new behavior and that he needs to know someone is noticing. By the way, simply paying attention can have an impact on your salespeople’s behavior. It is called ‘‘the Hawthorne effect.’’ Back in 1927, professor Elton Mayo studied the relationship between productivity and work conditions at Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois. What he discovered is that employees’ behavior may be altered in a positive way just because they know they are being studied. Translated into the workplace it means that noticing someone’s new way of doing a job task may be enough to motivate him or her to improve performance (Mayo, 1933). The message is clear for managers and sales leaders: pay attention to your salespeople and how they put training to work in their jobs. Reinforce them positively by commenting on their use of new skills or knowledge. Your attention and feedback can help maximize their performance. Now let’s look at what can be done before a salesperson takes part in a formal training experience.

Before the Training At the beginning of the chapter, I mentioned that there are many things that you can do to reinforce training, even before a participant steps into the classroom or tunes into an e-learning program. As a sales training professional for more than twenty-five years, I know from my own experience that there is something called ‘‘the teaching moment.’’ It is that time when a learner is completely open to taking in a

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new idea, approach, knowledge, insight, tactic, or methodology for what he or she is doing. If a salesperson truly desires to get the most out of a training opportunity, he or she needs to prepare psychologically before setting foot in the classroom or tuning into an e-learning program. They and you can create ‘‘the teaching moment.’’

Program Review One of the first things salespeople can do is review the course description and agenda to decide whether this particular course addresses their needs. The next thing is for them to jot down the specific objectives they would like to accomplish and to be prepared to discuss them in the class. That might mean having a conversation with the trainer to gain more insight into the course curriculum. It might also mean having a conversation with their manager to determine whether he or she is in agreement with their assessment and goals. For example, at the Eastman Kodak Company all managers of trainees are briefed on their roles in the transfer of learning, according to Mary Elliott Bassett, Worldwide Director of Sales and Customer Training. ‘‘We provide the managers with a checklist of the activities the manager needs to complete throughout the process so the trainee has a much higher chance of using the new skills and information on the job,’’ says Bassett. This indicates that managers are always put through a condensed version of the program before their salespeople participate in it.

Value of Pre-Work Another thing salespeople should do to prepare themselves for the teaching moment is to complete any required pre-work such as readings, case studies, interviews with experts, computer research, tests, or prerequisite courses. By doing the pre-work, salespeople are creating a framework for the learning that will take place in the course. They are also becoming familiar with concepts, terms, and skills that might be new to them. In the process of doing pre-work, they can also write down any questions they

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want answered during the course. Pre-work helps set up ‘‘the teaching moment.’’

During the Training Management Presence One way for management to show commitment to learning and support for the salespeople is for a senior manager to welcome the participants, set expectations, and positively reinforce trainees for their dedication to growing. The welcome speech doesn’t have to be long, but it does have to demonstrate that management is paying attention to the development of salespeople. The sheer presence of a senior manager communicates much more than the words he or she says in the introduction. The senior manager can also allay concerns or anxieties that participants may have about being part of a training class. He or she can emphasize the benefits of the course and create a comfortable, safe environment for learning. It means the ‘‘welcomer’’ has to be familiar with the course concepts and objectives so that he or she lays a foundation for participants to feel excited and committed to the experience of learning.

Eliminate Distractions While BlackBerries and cell phones can be tremendous time-savers, they can also be a huge distraction for salespeople. Turn off all PDA devices and phones before the training begins if you want to get the most learning. While many of us rely on multi-tasking to get our jobs done, it has an upside and a downside. Even though you may think you can focus on more than one task at a time, the truth is that when you are trying to learn new concepts or knowledge and integrate them into your behavior, you need to concentrate fully on learning.

Learning Contracts In the same way, managers who are constantly interrupting trainees or pulling them out of the class ‘‘for just one moment’’ are breaking the learners’ concentration. This behavior communicates that training is

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unimportant—not necessarily the best message if you want salespeople to learn and improve their performance. If training is going to stick, participants need to be allowed to give it their full attention and not be sidetracked by other things. Some companies ask managers and salespeople to sign a learning contract before the training that delineates each person’s specific responsibilities and commitments during the training class, such as managers will not interrupt the trainee or pull that person out of the training for any reason. If your budget allows for offsite training, it is easier to alleviate work distractions. But, of course, that isn’t always possible. Learning contracts are typically an effective way of making sure both parties— the manager and the salesperson—make a commitment to the training.

Design of the Training Even if you are not the person responsible for the design of a learning program, you should review the course materials to make sure they include certain elements. When I design a program, I incorporate a variety of action learning activities, skill application practices, case studies, games, and trainee presentations so the participants can practice new skills and knowledge in a variety of fun, interactive, and challenging ways. The activities reflect the trainees’ real-world job situations and are designed to give them many opportunities to repeatedly practice what they are learning in the safety of the classroom. Doing this gives salespeople a comfort level with new skills, and they are more likely to apply the learning immediately. The course should include some kind of materials or workbook in which participants take notes, work on exercises, and compile information that can then become a reference and review tool after they leave the training. Allowing participants to take notes in their own handwriting also encourages retention of the information. Three things that I design into the course workbook are (1) a followup page for any pre-work, (2) a ‘‘light bulbs’’ page, and (3) an action learning plan.

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Follow-Up on Pre-Work The follow-up page is typically positioned right after the agenda and objectives in the trainee workbook. It may be designed as a pre-test or as a case study requiring small group discussion based on assigned pre-work. The rationale is to help trainees start from a similar level of knowledge and to demonstrate their responsibilities as participants. Learning is not just a matter of showing up and listening. Salespeople need to actively engage and participate from the beginning. Completion of pre-work is part of their commitment to their own learning and should be communicated that way. By the way, every training program should include objectives that are communicated or listed in the course workbook. Check to see that the objectives match what you and your trainees hope to achieve through the training.

Light Bulbs Going On The light bulbs page is typically at the end of the workbook and is devoted to whatever the salesperson wants to jot down and remember—new ways of doing something, things to stop doing, things to incorporate into his or her repertoire. Whatever they want to capture on the page is totally up to them. Periodically during the training, I stop to let them jot down ‘‘any light bulbs that came on for them during the session.’’ As a way to review at the end of the day, I ask each person to share aloud one thing he or she has written on the light bulbs page. Allowing the learners to personally select ideas they feel will be most valuable to them not only reinforces the learning, but also strengthens the salespeople’s commitment to applying what they are learning to the job.

Action Plan The action learning plan is just that—a three-step plan that trainees complete at the end of the training. They choose three things they learned during the program that they commit to applying immediately when they are back on their jobs. They also commit to sharing their

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plans with their managers so the managers can coach around those skills. To give the action learning plan even more clout, the management development manager at a multimillion-dollar North American luxury company follows up with each training participant a month after the session to see how the learner’s plan is progressing and what role the manager is playing. It is one more way to strengthen skills and to reinforce the commitment to a learning culture.

A Different Kind of ‘‘Smile Sheet’’ Most trainers utilize an evaluation form at the end of the training course to determine whether participants enjoyed the program and found it valuable. Often the forms are referred to as ‘‘smile sheets’’ because they are more focused on how the participants liked the trainer and not what they found to be of value. Smile sheets are not always a measure of how effective the training was and whether participants will actually use what they learned on the job. However, Dr. Thalheimer has come up with a new take on the old smile sheet. According to him, ‘‘Smile sheets don’t seem to correlate with learning and behavior, are often biased by being provided to learners immediately after learning, and are sometimes analyzed in a manner that over-values the data as more meaningful than it really is.’’ His new design for a smile sheet asks learners to respond to specific learning points covered in the class. This not only enables the learners to better calibrate their responses, but also gives them a spaced repetition of the course concepts—improving later memory retrieval on key learning points. ‘‘The new smile sheet enables me to capture data about the value of the individual key concepts so that changes can be made in future sessions if needed,’’ says Dr. Thalheimer, who encourages trainers to use his format as a template. It is available on his website at www.work-learning.com and also as Exhibit 7.1. He also encourages training professionals to send out a slightly reworded survey two weeks after the course to offer yet another spaced repetition of the key learning concepts.

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Exhibit 7-1. Your Immediate Impressions of the Learning Experience

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Used by permission of Work-Learning Research, Inc.

After the Training With all the cost-effective multimedia options available today, reinforcement of training can take the form of audio products, video, print, and web-based tools.

Audio Reinforcement Tools A very popular and portable audio product is the podcast, a reinforcement segment that can be downloaded onto a CD, computer, Smartphone, or iPod. Doug Fox, corporate sales and product training manager at Ryerson Steel in Chicago, worked with a local supplier, The MarComm Store, to create a radio talk show format to reinforce concepts taught in his telephone selling course. The radio DJ interviewed Fox as if it were a real radio show. This gave Fox the opportunity to highlight the key ideas he wanted the salespeople to remember in an engaging and lively format.

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Every sales representative who attends the training program receives a CD that can be downloaded onto a computer and then duplicated for other handheld devices so reps can access the information whenever they want to review key concepts. ‘‘One of my reps told me that for about three weeks in a row she would listen to the CD while driving to work on Monday morning to inspire her and get her in the right frame of mind for selling,’’ said Fox. ‘‘She told me she saw a 10 percent increase in her close rate as a result.’’ He also heard from a manager who used the podcast as a coaching and training tool during a lunch presentation. ‘‘It generated a lively discussion on how we need to be more on top of things.’’ MarComm Store will also create a customized weekly or monthly radio show for your salespeople that can include interviews, testimonials, success stories, and announcements that reinforce training concepts.

Peer Mentoring Most of us have heard of traditional mentoring, whereby a seasoned salesperson takes a novice under his or her wing to show him or her the ropes. Peer mentoring is where people of mostly equal experience, but perhaps of different levels of understanding or success, join forces to help them both be more successful. For example, a major technology company recently introduced a new product. It was clear from the training that some of the salespeople ‘‘got it’’ immediately and others were left a bit confused. In their wisdom, management matched up those who got it with those who were struggling and allowed them to work together. The results were so positive that the company set up a formal peer mentoring program for all employees based on objectives defined by each individual. Clearly there is value in pairing salespeople with different skills and setting specific goals so they learn from each other. It is also a creative way to reinforce training.

Contests and Incentives In my last corporate job, one of my first goals as vice president of sales training was to train the sales force in four different and complex product

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lines. Once everyone had completed the five-day classroom program, we invited the sales force to participate in a product knowledge competition. I worked with a New York–based company called Professional Motivational Technologies (PMT) to design a series of four monthly quizzes based on the product training. Each quiz had a tiebreaker essay question. Participants were encouraged to go back into their training workbooks to find the answers, reinforcing their product knowledge. Based on answers to the essay questions and the overall numerical scores, we whittled down the number of finalists to ten salespeople. At the national sales meeting, we conducted a Jeopardy-type game show to determine the overall winner, who received $1,000 in cash and a trip for two to Hawaii. Not only was it a fun and engaging incentive, but it also applied the principle of ‘‘spaced learning,’’ which I discussed earlier in the chapter. And salespeople really knew their product information! Today all of PMT’s knowledge reinforcement is done online, making it easy to involve a large sales force that is spread around the globe. Henry Berzinn, PMT president, outlined some of the benefits of this type of knowledge reinforcement. ‘‘Our competitions stimulate mastery and motivation because not only does our customized testing help salespeople grow and learn, but also we loop management right into the process with regular email updates on who is participating and how they are doing.’’ PMT also offers sales data tracking so managers can see how the training is impacting achievement of sales goals. ‘‘If your company depends on third-party sellers, such as dealers or distributors, it is also a great way to get them focused on your brand and motivated to sell it,’’ says Berzinn, who knows first-hand from one of his biggest clients, a major truck manufacturer. ‘‘This well-known company has been using knowledge competitions for years not only to track individual and dealership sales, but also to reward those who do the best job. The incentive combined with constant repetition is what they feel is the formula for their success.’’ The questions for the knowledge challenge come directly from the classroom and e-learning courses provided by the company. Each question is a learning/reinforcement event using real-life situations. When a sales

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rep takes the challenge, if he or she answers a question incorrectly it is flagged and the person is given the correct answer before he or she can move on to the next question. So sales reps continue learning through the knowledge challenges. John Connors, president of the Center for Corporate and Human Development in Albany, New York, uses the product knowledge challenges as a component of the training he provides to banks. According to Connors, one of the most valuable parts of the process is linking managers/coaches into the results so they know exactly where they need to spend their coaching time with each salesperson and they can customize it to that person’s needs. ‘‘We got 80 to 90 percent compliance from managers on the coaching piece because they felt they had specific areas where they could help their people,’’ says Connors.

Follow-Up Sessions Many trainers include brief follow-up sessions in which salespeople can practice using real-life challenges they have faced since the training course. I offer a three-hour ‘‘skill byte’’ following sales presentation skills courses so that participants can practice a real upcoming customer presentation if they didn’t have one they were working on in the class. I also include a three-hour session for managers on how to coach their people on the skills learned in a class. John Connors makes follow-up a part of each of his courses. ‘‘I will come back a certain number of times every thirty days to coach onsite,’’ says Connors. ‘‘Participants receive an email homework assignment to complete in preparation for the onsite coaching session. The spaced repetition is what helps people retain and use the information they are learning.’’ Another trainer I know offers telephone coaching during which she has the sales team call in to a conference number for a sixty-minute session discussing how to apply the training in specific customer situations that have arisen since the onsite training.

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Any Time Reinforcement Sharing Success Stories Another excellent way to reinforce training’s value to the sales force is to share success stories. PMT has incorporated this idea into their work by including an essay question in each knowledge competition. The essay question, which serves as a tiebreaker, revolves around a real success a salesperson has had using the skills and knowledge acquired in training. ‘‘At our truck manufacturer, if your submission is selected to be included in the customized online newsletter we provide to them, you get $50. And the success story is published with your name—a great way to encourage salespeople to use the things they learn in training on the job,’’ says Berzinn, who has worked with companies in a variety of industries. Success stories can also be shared on a company intranet or in any kind of newsletter that goes to the sales force. Demonstrating that the skills learned in training work in the real world is another way to make training stick.

Annual Product Knowledge Qualification Tests Many companies are requiring their salespeople to pass an annual product knowledge qualification test in order to receive a ‘‘meets requirements’’ score on their performance appraisal. Some companies even tie scores into their incentive plans.

Annual Performance Review Many companies have an annual performance appraisal process that includes creating a development plan for the employee. But in order for it to work, companies must put teeth into that plan. At ColgatePalmolive, the development plan often includes a list of courses or learning experiences that an employee must complete during the year as a qualifier for next-level responsibilities. The expectation is set by each manager that an employee’s development is the responsibility of both

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the manager and the employee. Learning experiences are documented and reflect on decisions for promotion.

Mentoring Programs Formal mentoring programs, spawned by the influx of women and minorities into the workforce during the 1970s, abound in companies around the globe. Pairing more experienced individuals with newer people to help them successfully navigate unfamiliar waters has proven to be important in grooming and retaining rising stars. The major difference between formal and informal programs is that the former set clear expectations, provide mentors with specific guidelines, promote creative learning experiences, and initiate supportive networks within companies that encourage success. Mentors and mentees are taught how to give and receive the most out of the mentoring relationship. Among the expectations is that mentors will reinforce concepts from training courses, giving mentees repetition and application opportunities to cement the learning. Mentors also provide a sounding board when mentees want to try out new concepts in the real world without the risks associated with making a mistake in front of the boss or a customer.

Peer Training An old expression among educators states that ‘‘nobody learns more than the teacher.’’ When you know that you are going to have to teach someone else a concept, you learn it in a very different way than if you simply have to know it for yourself. For this reason, many companies require managers and salespeople to learn how to be trainers, then have them co-train courses with a professional trainer. Knoll, an international office furniture company, has been using peer training for the past four years. According to David Bright, vice president of communications, ‘‘Having our best salespeople do the training not only improves the effectiveness of the whole sales force, but also creates a respect for training at all levels.’’

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Chapter Summary Companies invest millions of dollars each year in learning and development. Yet not as many invest in making the training stick, thereby losing much of the value that these efforts could provide. In this chapter, I have provided a myriad of ideas on how to obtain a better return on investment for training through spaced repetition, reinforcement, and engagement of both managers and salespeople in the process of learning. As you can see from this chapter, effective learning and development is a process that begins before a training experience, continues through that experience, and goes on after the program. If you want to make training stick, you will throw out the vision that it is an event and commit to the whole process to get the return on investment you deserve. Questions for Reflection • What are we currently doing before and after the training session to reinforce key learning points? • What are some things we could be doing? • What else should we be looking for in the learning and development programs we use? • What should we be expecting from managers in the development process? • What responsibilities do salespeople have in terms of learning? • What are some ways we can demonstrate our commitment to developing people? • What are some resources we have, but might not be using effectively, to reinforce our training? • How can we get managers more focused on helping their people grow and learn?

References Daniels, Aubrey. (2000). Bringing Out the Best in People. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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¨ Ebbinghaus, Hermann. (1885). Uber das Ged¨achtnis (‘‘On Memory,’’ later translated to English as Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology in 1913). Mayo, Elton. (1933). Western Electric Company Hawthorne Studies Collection. Cambridge, MA: Baker Library, Harvard Business School. Thalheimer, Will. www.work-learning.com and his blog: www .willatworklearning.com or 617-666-9637. ‘‘New Design for My Smile Sheet’’ (July 9, 2008).

Additional Resources Center for Corporate and Human Development at www.cchdtraining .com or at 518-399-5872. MarComm Store offers customized training and reinforcement tools including audio, video, print, and web-based solutions such as podcasts, CDs, and DVDs at www.MarCommStore.com. Professional Motivational Technologies (PMT) offers customized knowledge reinforcement programs online at www.pmttest.com or 800-382-8685. www.SalesRepRadio.com provides a weekly webcast with the latest sales experts speaking on hot topics of interest to salespeople and sales managers.

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8 Measuring the Impact Did They Use It? Gary Summy

T

RAINING PROFESSIONALS ARE always in search of a

way to identify, measure, report, and receive credit for the ROI of the initiatives we champion. From the first time Donald Kirkpatrick introduced his four levels of training measurement in his book Evaluating Training Programs (1975), through Jack Phillips’ work in Measuring Return on Investment (1994), which took the discussion to five levels with an attempt to clearly define ROI (return on investment), we have been like Arthur’s knights in search of this Holy Grail that will return our Camelot to glory. One of the things we long to change is the perception of training from a cost line item to an organizational investment.

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ROI—The Quest While the quest is admirable, is it attainable? ROI is an extremely useful metric when applied to capital purchases, investment options, and other expenditures. But is it really appropriate for sales training? Can it or should it be applied to learning? I often hear from my colleagues focused on other training-related disciplines that I have it easy because sales training is simple to measure: Did salespeople sell more after training? It would seem to be an easy metric to capture and prove our results. Or is it? Looking at the overall topic of measuring training departments, including sales training, there are two areas that every department leader must address: (1) operational excellence and (2) business impact. Operational excellence refers to our efficiency and the effectiveness of the transactional aspect of training. Historic training metrics apply to the operational aspect of training departments, such as: • Cost per student • Training days or hours delivered • Pre-test and post-test results Business impact is all about our ability to create a positive effect on the metrics that matter to our clients. In other words, did the training actually make a difference to the business? My intent is to focus on evaluating sales training programs in terms of business impact. Business impact is all about our ability to create a positive effect on the metrics that matter to our clients. In other words, did the training actually make a difference to the business?

If we are unable to identify and quantify positive business impact, all of our efforts have a negative impact. The inability to identify, define, and quantify true business impact will always keep sales training (in fact, all training) simply another element of the expense line, and thereby subject to the sword wielded by the cost-cutters. Training without positive impact is seen as a cost to the business. Training with positive business impact can be positioned as an investment.

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Many things affect the measurement of training impact, not the least of which is deciding which metrics are most appropriate to use. We know that simply looking at increased revenue (gross sales) is not always the best measurement. For example, gross revenue may increase, but how about net revenue? Selling more at lower margins with a higher cost of sales is probably not the long-term goal of most businesses, and if we measure only that aspect, what have we proven? However, if the corporate objective is market share, it could be a more reasonable measurement to consider. Is the business goal top-line growth only? This implies the business has selected top-line revenue as the market share metric instead of the myriad of other metrics (such as units shipped, units in the pipeline, number of active customers, and a host of others).

Make sure you measure what the business has defined as the critical metric, not simply what is easy to capture.

Before embarking on our quest, there are several things to keep in mind.

Measure the Right Thing We want to be sure that whatever we attempt to measure (and hopefully the focus of our training content) is appropriate to the corporate objectives. Negotiations training with a focus on improving margins, in the middle of a campaign for market share improvement, may not be a good choice of engagements. It is like serving salty peanuts to a person dying of thirst. Under the right conditions peanuts are desirable, but what you are providing not only fails to meet the most urgent needs, it may actually have a negative impact on the current objectives.

Who or What Has an Impact? For the sake of argument, let’s assume we are in alignment and the expected outcome of our offering is designed to address the needs and objectives of the business. We deliver our training, the smile sheets are all

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top box (they loved the doughnuts), and three months later the business metrics we have targeted show positive improvement. Life is good and we have proven our value. Then marketing steps in and makes the case that it was the amazing new promotion or literature—not the training—that made a difference. In the meantime, finance tells us that the market growth during the measurement period would account for most of the financial gains, and the strategy gurus claim it was their insight on the markets and customers to target. And just when we think everyone has joined the ‘‘grab the credit’’ melee, in comes the competitive intelligence group to confirm two of our major competitors suffered significant shortages of materials in their supply chains and were unable to meet some delivery commitments, so no one can claim credit.

Sort Out the Variables We work in a dynamic and changing marketplace. Competitors, suppliers, market forces, natural disasters, and other phenomena all have some impact on results. Given this, how can training take credit for specific ROI gains? With so many things potentially (and actually) having an effect on the performance of a sales organization’s financially related metrics, it is difficult to claim, much less validate, a true ROI for sales training. I realize there are organizations that claim to measure true ROI for training, and I applaud their effort, but in my experience it is difficult to accurately assign responsibility for the returns. I remember a measurement project some years ago when we indicated we would be providing an ROI number to sales management. They all smiled, applauded our efforts, and wished us luck. Then as we were leaving, they told us they would be interested to see our results, but that no matter what number or ROI we would claim, they would not accept it because there were just too many variables. While we may be dealing with some obvious organizational metrics in sales numbers, we have little, if any, control over all the variables. So how do we sort out the variables and show that it was the training

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that made the difference? At this stage in the process, work to determine which variables will affect the metrics. Try to identify how much impact each will have on the metrics and outcome.

Practice What We Preach I am sure that occasionally we each have our difficulties communicating with others. Often the difficulty is more acute when our interaction involves someone on our team, in our company, or with our clients. When that happens to me I am frequently reminded by people close to me: ‘‘You teach this stuff, so why don’t you use it?’’ Too often I have taken shortcuts and not used the active listening skills, feedback tools, and the genuine interest in the other person I know I should employ. I know better, but still I persist. As sales trainers, we also do not always pay attention to the content of what we deliver and fail to practice what we preach.

Obey Cardinal Rules One of the cardinal rules of consultative, solutions, customer-centric selling is to find out the business drivers and key issues of the client. If we are unable to demonstrate how our ‘‘solution’’ will have a positive impact on the priorities of our client, we are at risk that funding will go somewhere else. Should we not do the same when we begin to justify our value to our clients? One of the fundamental problems of ‘‘solutions’’ selling is that, by definition, a solution requires a problem that must be fixed. If we are about impact, our focus should be on improving the business. While solving a problem with a solution should certainly help to improve the business, our first goal should be improving and accelerating the required business results as defined by our client’s strategy and associated metrics.

Identify Metrics Time to use the skills we teach and become a consultant to your internal clients’ business. Identifying metrics internally is the same process we teach our students to use when they engage their clients. Find out

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what is important to the client, using your knowledge of the company’s goals, objectives, and priorities as your initial roadmap in the search for meaningful metrics. 1. Step 1 in measuring the impact of sales training is to engage the clients and find out what metrics matter to them. • Ask probing questions to determine how they are measuring these key factors now. You might learn they want you to show improvement in an area for which no viable current metrics exist. Frequently, I have found a client wants to show improvement in areas such as call-to-close ratio or cycle time, only to find out they have no current metrics, but they know that whatever it is now, it should be better. How do we show improvement if we don’t know where we are now? • Tip: When no baseline exists, it is impossible to validate positive or negative movement. Never promise impact or attempt to show improvement if there is no starting position. You may move the needle, but how will you know, conclusively, the amount or even the direction of movement? The degree of impact of where you finish depends on where you started. • Do your homework. Without question, we must begin with the client and the client’s priorities. The caveat is that, as with a call on a senior executive, this is not purely a ‘‘discovery’’ call. We should have a good idea of what these critical metrics might include. Here are some examples of potential metrics of value to our clients and where a baseline may exist: • Funnel speed or sales cycle time • Level of relationships (top to bottom) • Breadth of relationships (horizontal across business units and departments) • Call-to-close ratios • Number of ‘‘units’’ shipped or in the pipeline

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• Mix of ‘‘units’’ shipped or in the pipeline • Product-to-service mix • Revenue generated • Revenue mix across product/service lines • Margin/profit generated • Margin/profit mix across product/service lines • Sales (fiscal or numeric) of targeted product/service lines • Sales mix (fiscal or numeric) of targeted product/service lines • Sales (fiscal or numeric) in targeted markets • Sales mix (fiscal or numeric) in targeted markets • Repeat customers (same mix) • Repeat customers (new products) • New customers • Number of new opportunities added in the pipeline • Size of transactions • Breadth of transactions across products/services/markets • Time to first order or revenue (new representatives) • Time to ‘‘break even’’ (new representatives) • Customer satisfaction (surveys and comments) Remember that the metrics you use in your business case are the same ones you will need to report on after the fact. Be sure you are able to capture the specific information necessary to express results in terms of the business case metrics. Think about how you will impact the organization and use those metrics to sell the idea as well as to report back on the results. 2. Narrow the list of metrics. The list above, along with metrics appropriate to your business environment, should form the

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foundation of your discussions with your sales leadership. Don’t use the whole list, but pick the top three or four. • They may already be defined in your company’s business plan and objectives. If not, use your general knowledge of your company and its goals to identify those metrics that reflect the priorities of your sales leaders. • Tip: Your list must focus on business and sales metrics, not training metrics. Be sure to focus on what is critical to your client, not to you. • Note: Traditional training metrics (operational) are things like cost per student day/hour, number of people trained, positive smile sheets, or improvement in pre-test/post-test scores (which only measure potential capability, not performance). Certainly some of the cost and efficiency metrics are important to the business and must be managed. However, an outstanding cost per student day or hour with lots of people trained on something that does not create value for the business is no value at all. Your operational excellence may actually deliver negative business impact at a cost that is expendable. 3. You are now in a position to validate whether your understanding of key metrics is the same as if they would set priorities. • If they push back, you have opened a dialogue. You can use your basic ‘‘handling objections’’ skills to understand the disconnects and obtain their list of priorities. Experience tells me that most people will be glad to edit your list (if it truly represents insight) but are less likely to create the list for you.

• Tip: If you start your dialogue by asking what the top three performance issues are that they need to address, this demonstrates a lack of understanding of the priorities of your client

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and could significantly affect your level of credibility. Worst case, you may not be invited back and you become a commodity. Best case is for you to engage your client on his or her terms, bring insight and value unique to your perspective of the issues, and begin moving your status to one of a partner. 4. Once we know the key metrics our clients view as critical, we can begin to explore how to measure them and how to link our efforts to positive changes in the metrics. Remember that, while our clients may identify key metrics, they may not have any data on a metric at the moment. If you don’t know where point A is, how will you know whether point B is better or worse (or the same as)? It is worth repeating, be careful not to get caught up in proving positive impact on something not currently defined.

Establish the Link Let’s assume we have clearly defined metrics identified and that sufficient baseline information exists for us to move forward. We need to begin to look at the direct links between: • The content we will deliver; • The skills and behaviors that will be developed; • The results expected (when those skills and behaviors are effectively implemented); and • The value potential of those results. The most effective model I have found to identify that linkage was developed by Robert O. Brinkerhoff, currently professor emeritus at Western Michigan University and a principal consultant for Advantage Performance Group. The model is the Impact Map. Dr. Brinkerhoff has written several books on the subject of the impact of training and how to measure results. I recommend you find the information and application directly from his books or specific training that is available

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from Advantage Performance Group (www.advantageperformance.com). Several books are listed in the reading list at the end of this chapter. An Impact Map uses a matrix to develop direct line of sight between training content and business goals and objectives. As noted in the example in Table 8-1, we create a direct link between the knowledge and skill content of the training effort and corporate goals. Left to right, we see that the skill is for participants to develop a plan and strategy for the inevitable concessions that are part of any negotiation. One of the critical actions in the process is to know what options are available for you to concede or trade. When the knowledge is applied or the skill performed appropriately, the result is to ensure you receive value in return for giving value. The impact is an improvement in profitability for the negotiation. Finally, if profits go up, so should net revenue.

Table 8-1. Example of an Impact Map Knowledge and/or Skill

Critical Actions

Key Results

Business Corporate Unit Goals Goals

Develop a concession plan and strategy

Develop a list of negotiable options and desired returns for trading

Grow Meet Never give profitability revenue anything targets without receiving value in return

We can validate this by using a right-to-left analysis. We need to grow revenue. One way to do that is to improve our profitability on the deals we close. In order to improve profitability we must ensure we don’t give away value without some commensurate value being realized. In order to get something in return for what I give, I need to understand both what I have to offer and what I want in return. The basis for being able to engage in that action step is the skill of developing a plan and strategy for concessions.

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Using the Impact Map model with managers helps them see the direct link between the training initiative and the on-the-job impact they can expect. This is also an excellent tool for managers to use with their direct reports who will participate in the training, ensuring everyone knows what will happen and what is expected.

With the Impact Map model, we create (and validate) the direct link between what we deliver and the metrics we are measuring. If there is no link, are we delivering appropriate training? Without a direct link between the capability (knowledge and/or skill) and performance (actions and results) we are trying to influence, how can we expect to demonstrate what impact we are trying to achieve? A problem in this scenario results from the other variables beyond our control. Negotiation skills and net revenue or value per deal/transaction may improve and sales teams may meet the profitability targets on a deal-by-deal basis; however, if we are engaged in fewer deals or deals of a smaller magnitude, total revenue may not be impacted in the desired direction. We have proven ability to impact individual transactions, but total revenue, even net revenue, may still not achieve overall corporate goals. The issue is not our negotiating ability, but perhaps our selection of opportunities to pursue or the ability to feed the sales funnel to ensure we are expanding the potential revenue opportunities. We do better at what we chase, but we may not be chasing enough to meet the total revenue targets. Therefore, it is essential to obtain agreement and commitment on exactly what you are measuring and attempting to impact up-front and an understanding of what may be out of scope (opportunity selection or funnel management in this example). If this agreement on the targets and metrics is not established in the beginning, we may find we have delivered and measured skill improvement in the areas we targeted, but our value is not seen as significant. However, we may identify skill gaps not previously recognized as an issue, demonstrating the need to analyze the total environment versus isolated perceived deficiencies.

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On the plus side in this scenario, if we have truly engaged in a total performance improvement discussion with our clients, we are in a position to demonstrate that impacting sales effectiveness is not the result of a single class or intervention but of a total analysis of the sales environment in which our teams must operate. With this type of total sales environment analysis and approach, we can move the discussion away from the classic ‘‘Just send them to training so they can be fixed’’ to looking at performance development and sustainability. Earlier I mentioned the issue of receiving credit for our impact, given all the variables involved in measuring sales performance. Using Impact Maps and the corresponding analysis of success scenarios helps us to clearly identify the factors that influence the results. This is the next step in the process developed by Dr. Brinkerhoff, called the Success Case Method.

Making the Case for Subjective Analysis Which is a more valuable metric, objective data or subjective analysis? Most people believe that ‘‘hard’’ or objective data is the more valuable. While I would not disagree that this type of information can make a compelling story, is it possible that this type of data might be misleading at best? It might even create a false or inaccurate analysis of the true situation. Many things go into ensuring that so-called objective data and metrics actually measure what is intended or that the results truly depict the veracity of the circumstances. When approaching this potential issue related to objective data, I recently did a web search using the phrase ‘‘how to lie with statistics’’ and Google identified over 100,000 results. It is possible to maneuver the statistical response based on what you measure, when you capture the data, how you capture the data, and a variety of other techniques. Take, for example, an end-of-course questionnaire that captures the participants’ evaluation of the value or impact of the course to their on-the-job requirements. These are often used in an attempt to produce ‘‘objective’’ data that shows the course has on-the-job impact. This is not

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‘‘objective’’ data, but is a numerical value that is easy to compare and gives the impression of objectivity. I have also seen this type of question used as part of the validation of the elusive ROI calculation, using the results to point to direct links between training program and job impact. However, a program potentially could receive excellent responses immediately after the session, with participants responding that they see a direct link to their ability to perform on the job. Based on the questionnaire, the case is made that the participants recognized the value and potential for impact. Often these surveys are done immediately after the session or within forty-eight hours using web ‘‘push’’ technologies. However, the same survey taken three months later may have a totally different set of results. In this case, the ‘‘objective’’ data may appear to support the fact that the intervention had (or in reality appears to have the potential to have) impact on job performance. Let’s look at it from a personal perspective. Assume you have an opportunity to attend some training that will impact your career skills and opportunities. You do some research and identify a program that, based on the participant surveys using a 5-point scale with 5 being ‘‘most definitely,’’ the average score on the question about whether the program will have a significant impact on your job performance and expanded career opportunities is 4.7. Would you consider attending? Would you spend your own money? The data certainly looks good, and the participants have clearly identified the value of the program. In further research, you discover the questionnaire was administered onsite at the end of the program and was available online for forty-eight hours after the session ended (on a Friday). You learn that one of your most trusted friends from another company attended the session and you call that person to discuss the program. You mention the survey results and would like this trusted friend’s personal opinion. She tells you she rated the program a 5 when she completed the survey. Sounds good so far; you’re probably ready to send the check. But then she tells you that after getting back to her real job she realized that, while there was a lot of good information, the training really didn’t develop actionable

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skills that transferred to the job, and the training provided no tools to implement the learning or ways to reinforce the content. In retrospect, it was nice stuff to know, but nothing that could be put into practice. Her advice? ‘‘Don’t waste your time or money.’’ What information is more credible and personally valuable to you, the ‘‘objective’’ and numerically expressed survey results, or the opinion of your trusted friend?

While ‘‘objective’’ data is valuable and compelling, it can often be trumped by subjective data based on the source and how it is presented.

Although clients tell you they want objective validation of a program’s value, do they ever use subjective information to make decisions? As you think about the value or weight of subjective versus objective metrics, have you ever been asked to deliver a program based on any of the following reasons from your sales managers? • • • •

Read the consultant’s book; Talked to another colleague that ‘‘swears’’ by the content; Hired a new ‘‘hot shot’’ who ‘‘swears’’ by the program; Listened to a sixty-minute webinar/commercial and it sounded good; • Met with a salesperson from a training company who bypassed you and ‘‘made a compelling case’’; or • Actually believed the information in the brochure or email they received? Subjective information may have more of a role in our decisions or evaluations than we would like to admit. How often do we discuss with sales professionals that customers make decisions based on personal reasons and use objective analysis to validate the subjective choice of suppliers? The same is true for the evaluation of the impact of the solutions we deliver. So how can we bring them together to make a compelling presentation of our value?

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Combining Objective and Subjective Analysis Used in conjunction with Impact Maps, a methodology for evaluation I have found useful is the Success Case Method developed by Dr. Brinkerhoff. It uses both an objective survey process and an in-depth interview format to uncover the more subjective analysis of the impact. I will review the basic process and approach, but recommend that you investigate it further. The basic process builds on the Impact Map process, whereby we establish a direct link between the program content and the business objectives and metrics. It’s imperative that the Impact Maps: • Represent the same view your clients have; • Include specific metrics that are of value; and • Acknowledge the other variables in play. This up-front analysis and agreement ensures our measurement process is of value to the client and represents their expectations. It also helps to take the other variables either out of the equation or at least has them on the table where all sides recognize the multitude of factors affecting the outcome. With Impact Maps in place, we build a brief post-session questionnaire designed to identify those participants who have been successful in applying what they learned and those who were not successful (but not necessarily failures). The questionnaire should: • Identify situations of both success and nonsuccess from our post-session survey data; • Be limited to five questions or fewer (other than demographics you may want to capture); • Be phrased to capture specific examples directly related to the critical actions and results defined in the Impact Map; • Include questions related to uncovering who has applied the skills of the program and the level of success related to the desired results as well as places where success has not been achieved and what circumstances existed in both situations; and

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• Have an open-narrative opportunity to explain or provide an example to determine where the most robust stories exist in both the success and nonsuccess populations.

Identify Each Survey Participant You should say up-front that, because you will be contacting some individuals for further information, it is necessary to capture each participant’s identity. You should be very clear on this. Also confirm that this information will be used only by the evaluation team or department and that no information will be shared with those outside the team. If you find it could be of value to identify a specific respondent, you should do so only with his or her knowledge and consent. Survey participants must feel confident in their ability to provide honest responses without fear of repercussions, especially for the nonsuccess situations. Your own policies and procedures around disclosure should be reviewed and discussed with your appropriate human resources or legal departments before proceeding with the data collection.

Identify Representative Samples Using the results of the survey, the next step is to identify a representative sample group for both success and nonsuccess. These do not need to be large, but enough to obtain good stories. It is vital that you select only individuals who fall at the extreme ends of the distribution—both the highly successful individuals and those indicating no success in the application. Generally, select about twice as many success stories as nonsuccess. As part of the Success Case Method you learn an interviewing process and use that approach to discuss and capture the stories of both success and nonsuccess cases. The idea is to capture robust information that very specifically identifies the elements of the training that were responsible for success and minimize the effect of other variables. Properly prepared and validated Impact Maps are a significant advantage when coming up with questions. Through this process you separate the

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variables and focus on the impact of the application of the skills on the outcome.

What Was the Impact? What Made the Difference? You are able to report, from credible sources, exactly what impact was realized and, more importantly, what elements of the training program were directly responsible. Show that the application of these elements was the difference between the top performers and both the nonsuccess and mid-range populations. The nonsuccess group should provide a clear understanding and awareness of factors that inhibit success. Use real stories about real accounts and opportunities from credible sources within your own environment. It is a compelling message with built-in credibility. (Check the resources at the end of the chapter to learn more about this process.) Whatever process you use to capture the results from program participants, always ask yourself: ‘‘Have I really measured the impact of our training? Does a training program really create impact?’’ Let me raise the question of what training professionals can truly influence . As Brinkerhoff explained in High Impact Learning and expands on in his new book, Telling Training’s Story, our domain is capability. Performance (that has impact) happens on the job. The best training in the world, not performed on the job, realizes zero impact. In fact, the best training in the world, not performed on the job, actually has a negative impact. Without on-the-job performance, all you have done is spend money and taken people out of the field. You are a cost burden. On-the-job performance and impact are the domain of the manager, coach, or perhaps a mentor, and they happen in the real world, not a classroom, a virtual environment (virtual environments reap virtual results), a role play, or a case study analysis.

Measurement Is a Shared Responsibility In my opinion, training, in isolation, at best has no impact, and without some means of evaluation and transfer of skills to the workplace, it will be perceived as a negative cost impact by many. Training on any

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topic or via any delivery mode, when done properly and with good instructional design, will ideally develop skills and improve capability. If we have analyzed the current as is and desired to be situations and addressed the appropriate skill gaps to move us to the desired state (assuming our analysis and definition of the to be are valid), training should be the major catalyst in developing the appropriate skill capability in the target population. However, just because they ‘‘can’’ do it does not ensure they ‘‘will’’ do it. Impact is realized through performance, not through capability. As a result, we must become partners with our clients. No matter how good our training might be, without field managers, coaching, reinforcement, and actual application to customer situations, there will be no business impact.

The days of sending salespeople to class to be ‘‘fixed’’ are over, if they ever existed at all. When I work with sales management clients, the discussions focus on the skill gaps and how we will help in developing capabilities to overcome those gaps and on the reinforcement and coaching necessary to realize change on the job. The good news has always been that it is not a particularly difficult sale—managers know this. It is a lot easier to point to the fact that the training didn’t fix the problem. Reality says training alone never will. We have the responsibility to ensure we address the right skills and develop the capability of the target populations to overcome their skill gaps. Managers have the responsibility to turn that capability into performance on the job, where impact really happens. If you work with the sponsoring managers, identify their critical metrics and how they are captured and gain commitment about the roles and responsibilities related to capability and performance, as they become part of the measurement process. Impact and results are validated by management, not just by the training department. With shared responsibility, there is also shared value, shared success, and shared impact.

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Resource Robert O. Brinkerhoff, Ed.D. Western Michigan University Advantage Performance Group www.advantageperformance.com

Additional Resources Robert O. Brinkerhoff. Success Case: Find Out Quickly What’s Working and What’s Not. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2003. Robert O. Brinkerhoff. Telling Training’s Story: Evaluation Made Simple, Credible, and Effective. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2006. Robert O. Brinkerhoff and Anne M. Apking. High Impact Learning Process: Strategies for Leveraging Business Results from Training. New York: Perseus Publishing, 2001. Donald Kirkpatrick. Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1975. Jack J. Phillips. In Action: Measuring Return on Investment. Alexandria, VA: ASTD, 1994.

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9 Collaborative Partnership to Maximize L&D Investment Susanne Conrad

Q

UESTION: WHY IS the Sales Learning and Development

(L&D) budget usually near the top of the hit list when budgets are trimmed? Simple answer: Because Sales slashes expenses deemed to have the least impact on the primary objective of making the sales target (and, therefore, earning bonuses) first. At the risk of sounding like a heretic to sales trainers, if L&D cannot provide sufficient value in terms of readying the sales force to deliver against objectives, then its budget should be cut. An equal burden, however, rests on sales management to collaborate with Sales L&D in a manner that actually allows L&D to be effective in contributing to the achievement of Sales’ objectives. In the end, the failure of L&D to provide the value sought by sales management is a shared failure between the two. 161

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This chapter addresses a collaborative approach that maximizes the learning and development investment to build a sales force that not only delivers on objectives and goals, but can outperform the competition—in other words, a profitable win-win situation!

The Need for Collaboration The purpose of L&D, in the end, is to build the skills and competencies the sales force needs to execute sales strategies effectively and efficiently. And keep in mind that the sales force’s performance success is difficult to tie directly to L&D effectiveness—there are other significant forces in the marketplace that influence sales success. A perfectly trained and developed, effective and efficient sales rep may still lose ground with a customer when, for example, a competitor introduces a new product the organization cannot compete with or major customers consolidate and change the nature of the industry, or the economy falls into a general recession, etc. These and many other factors can destroy the immediate ROI of training and development. Ben Ball, a partner of Dechert-Hampe Consulting, has a perfect description for the often comical miscommunications between Americans and their foreign associates during his tenure as marketing vice president with Frito-Lay and PepsiCo Foods International in Australia during the 1990s. He described it as ‘‘two countries separated by a common language.’’ So it is with many sales organizations and their training functions: ‘‘two functions separated by their common goals.’’ Although the two usually speak of their goals in common terms (for example, driving more sales to the bottom line, meeting sales objectives, etc.) their perspective and focus are often quite different. In working with my clients over the years in both the L&D and Sales functions of organizations, I often hear the functions’ differing perspectives. They frequently reveal an uneasy coexistence of the two groups. The sentiments are often something similar to the following: Sales Management: ‘‘L&D doesn’t understand that the only reason for me to develop my people is to meet my sales goals. I don’t train

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for the love of training. I need my people in the field and focused on selling. L&D doesn’t really understand what it takes to run the business.’’ Training: ‘‘Sales management expects me to develop the skills and competencies their people need, but then gives me neither the resources nor the time with those people to be effective. Management doesn’t really understand what it takes to get people to truly learn and apply that learning.’’ The ideal is to approach learning and development in such a way that sales managers proactively seek out L&D time because the salespeople participating in training and development are more effective and efficient and perform at or above expectations more frequently and more quickly than those who do not participate. Organizations that assimilate L&D in a way that delivers benefits to Sales that outweigh the resources (time and money) required can develop a sales force capable of outperforming their competition. The fact is that L&D can have a profound positive impact on sales performance if integrated correctly into the overall business strategy. And that integration takes place when there is 1. A clear, open, and ongoing communication between the Sales and L&D function; and 2. An approach that maximizes L&D’s value for Sales. For true benefits from training and development to the sales organization, both Sales and L&D must be devoted to these two elements rather than just paying lip service to them because it is politically correct or expedient to claim a passion for them. Let’s explore these two elements.

Collaborating: What Sales and L&D Should Talk About Saying that one is willing to engage in frank, clear, and ongoing communication is certainly necessary and often done. The difficulty comes from determining what the two functions should actually be talking

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about. The Discussion Model (see Figure 9-1) serves as a guide for good discussions. To use the model, plan conversations beginning at the bottom of the pyramid and build them up from there—just like building a pyramid, where a strong base allows one to build a solid structure. Skipping any of the topics in the model or taking them out of order may result in less than optimal outcomes. Figure 9-1. The Discussion Model

Resources

Process

Roles

Goals

Frank, clear, and ongoing discussion paves the way for effective collaboration between L&D and Sales.

Goals In order for L&D to respond to and support Sales’ objectives and desired outcomes, it must understand them completely. This requires a mutual commitment from L&D and Sales to engage in discussions of sales targets, sales strategies for reaching those targets, and the tactics Sales plans to implement. Although sales management may feel that an in-depth discussion with L&D is unnecessary, without this information L&D cannot accurately make recommendations and propose training solutions that fit within Sales’ overall plan for the year.

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Let’s assume, for example, that the Coffee Cup Company, which has had relative exclusivity supplying coffee cups to local coffee shops, has learned that a new cup company is about to move into its market. As a result, Sales has determined that its sales force’s negotiation skills need to be upgraded to deal with a competitor that will most likely attempt to undercut prices. Sales requests a negotiation skills class from L&D. Unless L&D understands that the competitive threat will require sales reps to operate in a significantly more price competitive environment within a short period of time, it may identify or develop a general negotiation skills course that spends only a small portion of time dealing with price negotiation. If it understands the exact nature of the threat and the approach Sales wishes to take, the pricing change authority the sales reps have, etc., it could develop a program focused on the specific skills necessary and incorporate practices and activities heavily focused on this aspect of negotiation rather than a generalized course. Also, a discussion of goals reveals the vision for the course. For example, L&D may learn that sales management expects L&D to touch base with sales reps after the program to provide additional coaching. Without the clear discussion, L&D may assume that follow-on coaching will be done by managers and not plan for this requirement. Dissatisfaction with L&D’s performance is sure to follow. If there are differing levels of strategies or plans for segments of the sales force, L&D should be aware of these so it can plan for variations in content and rollout to these segments. The more information Sales shares about its strategies or changes in strategies, the more effective L&D can be in recommending and developing programs that provide exactly the type of results Sales needs. It is equally up to L&D to probe not only for general information regarding the course requirements, but to probe for desired behavioral changes and outcomes Sales desires from the programs. In the example above, L&D should inquire into the root cause of the request, the types of behavior changes sales management expects after the course, and any specific skills or competencies required to meet Sales’ challenge.

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These types of conversations should be very frank. They may not take place, however, because sales management believes that: • L&D staff does not have the sales or business expertise to fully understand the sales situation; • Sharing this level of detail jeopardizes confidentiality; and/or • The information will not have an impact on L&D effectiveness. L&D may fail to engage in such conversations because it believes that: • Its expertise should remain in learning, teaching, and development rather than in understanding the business; • It already understands Sales and the business well enough; and/or • This type of information will not impact L&D effectiveness. The truth is that the more L&D and Sales share the type of information noted and, in fact, their attitudes and concerns about training and development, the more likely it will be that L&D can deliver programs that meet Sales’ needs and take its issues and concerns into consideration. Thus, the first step in successful collaboration that results in significant training and development benefits to the sales organization starts with good communication of goals.

Roles The next important communication that must take place between Sales and L&D is clarification of the role L&D will play in the sales organization. This can be one of two extremes or any spot on the continuum between them. At one end of the spectrum, L&D simply acts as a delivery mechanism, identifying, procuring, or developing and/or delivering the requested program. In the case of the Coffee Cup Company, that may be as simple as seeking out and purchasing an off-the-shelf negotiation skills program that most closely matches Sales’ requirements and teaching the skill to sales reps. On the other end of the spectrum, L&D acts as a full partner in conducting baseline assessments of the sales force,

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researching the marketplace needs, identifying the skills and competencies gaps, proposing solution options for closing gaps (that may go beyond training and development), working with Sales in executing the chosen options, and scorecarding results. In the case of Coffee Cup Company, L&D may research the market to identify best practices, benchmark the sales force, recommend training and process interventions, contract for and deliver a customized negotiation skills program, work with Sales to develop new pricing tools, and facilitate process changes that allow sales reps to adjust pricing within specified parameters during negotiations. Sales also has a continuum along which it takes a role in the process. At one extreme, Sales acts like a transactional customer, simply placing an order for a program with L&D and taking delivery of same. In the case of the Coffee Cup Company, Sales would simply contact L&D and request a negotiation skills program with certain characteristics it has identified at a particular time for a specific number of participants—and that’s all. At the other end of the continuum, Sales requests that L&D conduct research, benchmark the sales organization, make recommendations for closing gaps, jointly agree to an approach, and work together to implement and scorecard. No point along the continuum of roles is ‘‘right’’ or ‘‘wrong.’’ In fact, the point may vary for the organization depending on the nature of the situation being addressed. It is crucial, however, that Sales and L&D discuss the role so there is clarity about what each will do and what is beyond the capability/willingness of each function to deliver. The role assigned to L&D is somewhat dependent on the business and sales expertise L&D brings to the table. The most impactful programs will be delivered if L&D has a sales or business background in addition to strong adult education expertise.

Process To be effective, Sales and L&D should discuss and agree on a process both are comfortable with when providing solid programs to the sales force. This discussion should include L&D’s and Sales’ plan to infuse

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the appropriate content into the program, target dates and deadlines, program pilots, rollout plans, measurement and scorecarding plans, follow-up plans, and so on. Training formats should also be discussed and agreed on. L&D can recommend a number of options for training and explain the pros and cons of each. Sales must determine which of the options it believes will best meet its needs and deliver the results it seeks. For example, traditional classroom training is not only appropriate but also necessary for successful learning of interpersonal skills. Classroom training requires sales staff to be out of the field, but it affords the immediate feedback and practice opportunities required for the subject matter. Teaching the sales force to use a new Excel-based tool can be effectively accomplished via e-learning or a self-study program. It requires the sales force to complete the training either on their own time or Sales must allow study time away from daily responsibilities. Self-study formats are extremely effective in teaching such material, as sales reps are not constrained to learning at the pace of the group. L&D’s role is to recommend and provide options for accomplishing Sales’ training and development goals. Sales’ role is to determine the approach it will take, given the pros and cons of the options, the resources available, and the business requirements.

Resources Budget. Time. People. Every organization has limits on resources, and those limitations heavily influence what can be accomplished. Sales will provide L&D budget if the results help Sales reach the ultimate goal of making the sales numbers. Sales cannot, however, expect L&D to be effective without reasonable funding and resource allocation. To ensure clarity around what is required and what can and cannot be accomplished, the discussion regarding available resources must be open and ongoing. For example, assume that sales management requires a basic selling skills program for new hires. L&D may recommend a three-day workshop with a combination of L&D facilitators and subject-matter

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expert (SME) presenters that incorporates the organization’s approach, selling theory and practice activities to ensure new sales reps can apply the learning. Such a program requires significant budget, time, personnel, and sales time out of the field for success. If sales management is unable to provide these resources, L&D can scale back the program, switch to a format (such as distance learning or self-study) that requires fewer resources but reduces effectiveness, shift more of the training and development to managers in the field, or explore other options. Together Sales and L&D must determine the approach given the available resources.

A Practical Approach to Collaboration Training and development do not happen exclusively in a classroom or in a training program. Nor is this always the best way to train and develop the sales force. The most effective training development programs combine formal learning with experience and behavior modeling and modification. For a sales organization to build a stellar sales force, it must plan their development by creating an approach that matches its strategic and tactical plans. The approach described here (Figure 9-2) lays out a practical, collaborative way for Sales to draw maximum benefit from training and development. The output is a plan that aligns L&D and Sales development toward the common goal: meeting Sales targets.

Step 1: Identify Skills and Competencies Jointly identify, at least annually, the skills and competencies necessary for the sales force to be effective in the market. The list should include not only sales skills and competencies, but all skills and competencies required of a good salesperson—computer and technical abilities, product knowledge, interpersonal skills, business and company knowledge, industry knowledge, customer knowledge, analytics, planning, and so forth. Add skill or competency gaps or deficiencies to the list. For example, sales management for a large product line with a complex sale (like enterprise

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software platforms) realizes that product knowledge in general is not sufficiently deep for sales reps to develop winning solutions with customers even though detailed product information is readily available on the company’s intranet and can be accessed by all sales reps. Closing product knowledge gaps should be added to the training and development list. Figure 9-2. L&D and Sales Collaborate on a Common Goal

All Learning and Development

L&D Programs

L&D & Sales Collaborative Programs

Not all training and development is done effectively by L&D. Sales programs are more effective when L&D collaborates with Sales.

The more detailed the list, the better the understanding of the requirements and the big-picture view of an ‘‘outstanding sales rep.’’ To build this list, L&D contributes its unique expertise in marketplace and competitive skills/competency research, benchmarking, sales force baselining and assessment, and whatever else applies. Sales contributes knowledge of the market and industry, competitive insights and any desired changes, observed/perceived skill/competency gaps, and so on.

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Next, Sales must determine which: • Items are necessary to meet regulatory or compliance requirements. Obviously, these must be accomplished and, therefore, included in planning and resource considerations. • Skills/competencies have the most impact on the sales force’s ability to meet Sales’ targets, implement strategies, and execute tactics. In essence, a forced ranking of all possible training and development opportunities. This step results in a clear picture of what training and development must be accomplished to achieve goals and objectives and in which order they should be rolled out for maximum impact. With this information, Sales can begin to see the scope of training requirements and L&D can begin to understand its overarching goals for the year.

Step 2: Segregate the List Between L&D and a Collaboration Between Sales and L&D Once the list is drawn up, L&D and Sales collaborate to identify which programs are best developed, presented, and/or executed by L&D or a combination of the two. In most organizations, L&D takes responsibility for general, non-sales-related topics, such as required safety programs, regulatory or compliance topics, new employee orientations, non-sales tools training (such as Microsoft programs, telecom, and others). Sales and L&D should collaborate on sales-specific programs (as seen in Figure 9-2). Collaborating on sales training and development means that Sales and L&D each do what they do best to develop the sales force. L&D teaches the rules, approaches, skills, competencies, and theories. It incorporates practice and learning experiences to teach the sales force the required skills and competencies. Sales then takes on modeling the behaviors, coaching and mentoring the sales force to effectively and efficiently apply the learning to their day-to-day work.

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A few items on the full list may not fall cleanly into either category. For example, sales reps may be taught to use Excel in conjunction with learning to complete their sales planning. In such cases, Sales and L&D must simply agree on where the responsibility for the program falls. In general, programs that have a sales-specific component, like the Excel example cited here, should fall into the collaborative group.

Step 3: Determine How Sales and L&D Will Collaborate on Each Program The following table serves as a general guideline for beginning the assignment of responsibilities. Sales and L&D should discuss and customize to suit their situation.

L&D’s Portion of the Program

Sales’ Portion of the Program

Primary Focus

• Teach skills, • Model skills, competencies, competencies, behaviors, etc. behaviors, etc. • Provide practice applying • Build experience and the learning proficiency

L&D Formats

• • • •

L&D’s Role

• Research on behalf of Sales if appropriate (benchmarking, best practice surveys, etc.) • Baseline skills/ competencies • Recommend format, program structure

Classroom e-Learning Distance learning Self-study

• • • •

On-the-job training Coaching Mentoring Work-withs

• Assist in developing a post-training program development and/or follow-up plan for Sales to work against

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L&D’s Portion of the Program

L&D’s Role Cont’d

• desired outcomes, • desired behavior changes, • preferred approaches/ formats, if any, Sales’ Role

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Sales’ Portion of the Program

• Develop courses/program • Support sales • Project manage thirdmanagers party developers, if • Teach effective appropriate behavior modeling • Work with Sales to • Teach effective develop tools/job aids coaching/ • Coordinate logistics mentoring • Deliver/facilitate • Teach basic adult courses/programs education concepts • Work with Sales on follow-up to programs • Assist as requested • Scorecard/monitor • Provide administrative results support for training and development • Clearly define

• sales requirements/ needs • Provide SME support for development and delivery if necessary • Provide resources as required and appropriate for development and delivery

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• Require sales manager post-training program development and/or follow-up • Work with L&D to build training and development skills in sales managers

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I’ve seen this approach work in a leading consumer goods company that created a new basic selling skills program for its sales force: • L&D and Sales discussed in detail the outcomes and behavior changes sales management sought, as well as the perceived gaps in the sales force’s current performance. • L&D then researched, among other things, its customer satisfaction scores and industry best practices. • After reviewing results, sales management and L&D collaboratively defined the topics to be covered in the selling skills program. • L&D then contracted with and managed program development through a training consultant. • Sales provided SMEs to work with the developer to ensure customized content specific to the organization’s go-to-market strategy. SMEs also provided input to activities and exercises that replicated on-the-job experiences for participants and assistance in creating job aids. • Sales and L&D both participated in a pilot of the program and worked together to make adjustments. • During development, L&D created a sales manager overview of the program to ensure sales managers would be familiar with the program their sales reps would participate in. L&D also provided recommended follow-on activities to reinforce the program and ensure participants were applying the concepts. • Sales management added coaching and on-the-job follow-up with participants to the sales manager’s annual performance plans. At this point you may ask, ‘‘If we have an L&D function, why must Sales take on any of the training/development responsibility?’’ Some training/development is done more effectively on the job by a subjectmatter expert, experienced peer, high performer, or manager. These skills/competencies are best learned by observing and copying the behavior modeled by an experienced practitioner, honed by coaching from one’s manager, or attempted hands-on in the field. People learn best

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when their managers regularly reinforce the learning and require them to follow through on learning. Consider that L&D can teach company policy on returns and refunds, but only sales experts can model how and when to make exceptions. Training can teach customer relationship management (CRM), but only an experienced salesperson in the field can provide the new sales rep with insights and nuances of the relationship with any particular customer. Sales’ primary consideration should be utilizing the limited time of sales managers and subject-matter experts to best advantage. A sales manager’s primary job is to develop his or her staff. However, with a finite amount of time to devote, the sales manager’s time should be focused on the training/development opportunities where his or her expertise will be most impactful.

Building a Strong Sales L&D Staff Sometimes I’ve run into a situation in which Sales feels reluctant to collaborate because it feels training does not bring a deep and broad understanding of sales or the business to the table. Here are a few tried-and-true ways to develop an effective L&D staff: • Hire L&D staff who also have a business and/or sales background . The most credible trainers or facilitators are those who have actually been in the field in a sales capacity. And the more immediate the experience, the more credibility they have with Sales. • Tap sales staff to be temporarily assigned to Sales L&D. Sales staff would thus gain an understanding from adult education experts that can be applied when they are promoted to management, and L&D would learn from sales experts. A California Fortune 100 company assigns high-potential sales managers to head its sales development function as part of its formal leadership development process. • Include L&D in non-training and development sales events (sales team meetings, customer visits, product briefings, etc.). That way,

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L&D can gain first-hand insight into the issues of Sales. And sales staff will see that L&D has a close, hands-on connection—L&D gains tremendous credibility with the sales force. • Allow SMEs to work with Sales when appropriate and reward sales personnel who do so. This can be a very powerful development opportunity for Sales that does not require sales staff to leave their sales positions. It allows a strong combination of the expertise of both the Sales and L&D staffs.

Barriers and Enablers to Collaboration As you may have guessed, there are a number of barriers or enablers in organizations that affect how well Sales and L&D functions collaborate. The following is not a complete list, but provides a springboard for thinking about barriers and enablers in your organization (also see Figure 9-3).

Figure 9-3. Barriers and Enablers to Collaboration

Structure

Culture

Barriers and Enablers

Process

Motivation

Barriers and enablers to collaboration between L&D and Sales must be identified and addressed.

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Structure Structural enablers and barriers include the hierarchy within the organization; the number of sales managers, SMEs, and experienced sales reps; the number of L&D staff; and the size of the sales force. If staff numbers are large, there is a larger pool of experts to tap for collaboration without putting an undue burden on staff time. SMEs will not be called on as frequently if the need is spread across a larger group. The expertise level of both the Sales and L&D staff also plays a part. The more experienced the staff, the more experts in Sales or L&D are available to assist each other. A trainer/facilitator with significant sales experience will need to draw less Sales SME time than an inexperienced trainer/facilitator. A fairly junior group of salespeople will provide fewer SMEs able to assist L&D.

Processes Sales staff have their regular jobs to do. If they are tapped to act as SMEs for L&D, processes must be in place to free up sufficient time for them to work with L&D. Also, procedures must be in place to include L&D in non-training/development sales events. A process must also be in place to facilitate the collaborative discussions between Sales and L&D—when discussions happen, who leads the discussion, who initiates the discussions, what format and structure the discussions will take (quarterly meetings, semi-annual web meetings, informal reviews, etc.)

Culture Some enablers or barriers to collaboration are cultural. For instance, in a corporate culture in which managers understand that their primary responsibility is developing their staff, they will be very willing to collaborate with L&D on post-learning event follow-ups when participants return to the job. In cultures in which managers are more focused on administrative tasks, coaching and mentoring become more of a burden and less likely to be accomplished. Organizations in which the culture

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indicates that training and development are an ‘‘event’’ (a one-time class, a conference, etc.) and that participants are expected to learn and return to the workplace and apply the learning without further intervention will have far less collaboration than organizations in which culture indicates that learning and development is a process that stretches the length of a person’s career. Generally, organizations whose senior leadership believe strongly in collaboration foster a collaborative approach through the organization—senior management models the behavior of collaboration.

Incentives People do what they are incented to do. Therefore, if an organization rewards collaboration, people who wish to be successful collaborate. For example, SMEs who are rewarded for working with L&D to develop programs with promotion or choice assignments will be more apt to volunteer for such assignments. L&D staff will be more apt to spend time at non-training Sales events to learn more about sales if they are given recognition for their new insights and expertise. Managers will be more prone to collaborating with Sales on post-program follow-up if their sales reps become more successful in meeting sales goals.

Summary L&D and Sales can be effective partners in developing a truly outstanding sales force. For this to be the case, Sales and L&D must collaborate in these areas: 1. Clear, frank, and frequent communication of sales goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics; 2. Combined work on program development and delivery from program inception through execution and follow-up on the job; 3. Development of a L&D staff with the broad and deep understanding of the business and sales; and 4. Understanding and acting on the barriers and enablers to collaboration.

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With good collaboration, Sales can draw on L&D’s expertise to build an outstanding sales force. Sales will have significantly more confidence in the value of its L&D investment as it plans how, when, and where resources are applied. And understanding its own role in the training and development process ensures that L&D’s work with the sales force is reinforced and applied day-to-day for lasting behavior change. L&D will be better able to make recommendations and resource requests, to deliver the type and formats of learning desired, and to provide the post-training support that Sales requires for success. Result: A win-win situation for Sales as well as L&D. Questions for Reflection • In your organization, does Sales share its goals and objectives with L&D? Do Sales and L&D discuss their roles in the training and development process? Do Sales and L&D collaborate on the processes? How could you get them to collaborate more or more often? What would be the benefits to your organization if there were more discussion between Sales and L&D? • Does your organization have a complete list of all the training and development topics required? How could this help your organization? How could you develop such a list? • Is there a clear understanding of what the role of L&D and Sales is in the training and development process? Should L&D be doing more or anything different? Should Sales be doing more or anything different? • Does Sales believe it has enough support from L&D for postlearning event development? Does L&D believe it receives enough support from Sales to meet expectations and deliver results? What could your organization do to close any gaps? • What does your organization do to create a L&D function with a broad and deep enough knowledge of Sales to be effective? How would doing so/doing more help your organization?

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• What are the structural enablers or barriers to collaboration in your organization? The process enablers or barriers? The cultural enablers or barriers? The motivational enablers or barriers? How could you break down barriers and maximize enablers? How would doing so help your organization?

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10 Sales Managers The Heavy Lifters in Training Salespeople Rick Wills

I

N THE WORLD of sales training, the ruler is not the best training

designer, most talented evaluator, or most skilled facilitator. The reigning monarch is the sales manager. Sales managers control the key decisions, such as who will be trained and what training their staff will attend. They set the tone for the importance of the training and expectations of new skills and performance changes for their people. The sales managers are the models for the skills their salespeople will use when calling on customers. Most importantly, it is they who have the most time and opportunity to develop their team members. Successful sales training areas work with and through the sales managers to ensure the right salespeople are receiving the right training and that they are receiving follow-up back on the job.

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Corporate Role of Sales Management Sales Management Accountability The position of sales manager is a demanding and crucial one. Sales managers are charged with generating the maximum profitable revenue possible within a defined geography. They work to maximize market penetration within their territories’ market segments. And, of course, they are responsible for meeting or exceeding their corporate goals. So that they can accomplish this, top management provides sales managers with a very expensive set of tools: the sales force that reports to them. It is through the combined efforts of the sales manager, the sales team, and the support staff that these goals are accomplished.

Responsibilities While the responsibilities of any given sales manager may vary, the typical functions or duties the sales managers must perform include: 1. Forecasting 2. Budgeting 3. Market segmentation 4. Local sales plan development and implementation 5. Establishing sales quotas and goals 6. Finding and hiring salespeople 7. Coaching and counseling 8. Developing and implementing incentive programs They also have the important role of developing their sales staff to their fullest potential. This responsibility, however, many times falls low on the list of activities for the manager. The reasons for this are numerous. First, the sheer scope of the duties sales managers must perform require them to prioritize their time on the issues that may be the most crucial at any given period of time. Second, there are usually immediate rewards for accomplishing the most time-sensitive duties. Third, seldom are there immediate rewards for people development. Finally, there is often

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limited upper management concern when training of the sales staff is not accomplished. However, it’s important to recognize that sales managers accomplish their ultimate responsibility, sales, through the skills and abilities of their team of sales and support people. These are the people who ultimately create and retain customers and drive the revenue. The Training and Development Role. In business, any significant outlay of

dollars only happens after a business case is presented to management. The case is based upon specific objectives to be accomplished and an expected reduction in costs or increase in revenues. It also includes a set of specifications to which the acquisition must perform. Comparing Million-Dollar Scenarios. The final contract for a hardware acqui-

sition typically includes provisions assuring that the investment will be properly installed; regularly checked and maintained; updated as necessary to keep the machine operating at peak performance; and that an emergency contact will be available should problems arise. A $5,000,000 piece of equipment that is critical to the operation and production of the business with an expected life of five years must return over $1,000,000 to cover its annual initial cost. A sales manager with a staff of eight salespeople, each earning $100,000 annually plus a benefit package of 25 percent of salary, is likewise responsible for $1,000,000 of costs. While the equipment comes with instructions and assistance on installation and maintenance, the sales staff likely did not. That sales manager, from a business perspective, should have the same expectations regarding the ‘‘acquisition, installation, maintenance and upgrading’’ of their sales staff as the care of the equipment purchase. However, as we all know, this is a bit more challenging to come by. Denis Shaffer, marketing manager of GFS, Inc., in Milford, Delaware, states, ‘‘The most critical time in affecting the long-term success of a new salesperson is the first year on the job. In working with salespeople, I try

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to make sure they understand not only what they need to do, but have a sales process that allows them to analyze how well they are doing and gives me a tool to help evaluate and assist, as necessary, in building their skills.’’ Frontier FS Sales and Marketing Manager Bob Williams says, ‘‘My time with salespeople, coaching, counseling, directing, and supporting as necessary, has the biggest potential payback of anything I do. I only succeed when our sales force succeeds, and that means I need to do everything I can to help them accomplish that. They are a major investment that needs to have a very positive return. It only makes sense I manage that investment wisely.’’

Sales Competencies Initially the ‘‘specs’’ for the sales force investment should be based upon competencies required of the job. Sales managers are critical in assuring that both the core and functional competencies of their sales positions are current with the needs and desires of their customer base. The core competencies for successful salespeople include: • • • • • •

Goal orientation Personal initiative Customer focus Relationship building Influence and persuasion abilities Interpersonal skills

The skills needed generally remain constant regardless of external changes in the marketplace. However, the functional competencies, or behaviors, knowledge, skills, and motivations, can vary between market segments or in changing market or economic conditions. It is the sales manager who should be the key person in helping identify changes based on his or her experience with the sales force and from the input of the salespeople themselves. This is because the sales managers are the ones to

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assist their people in developing new skills or strategies to fit the changing conditions.

Assessing Competencies Not only must sales managers be able to identify the competencies needed, but they must also be able to assess the abilities of their people to utilize those competencies. For example, in the area of interpersonal competencies, listening is a critical skill. However, it is also important that the salesperson be able to distinguish between a prospect’s questions used for information gathering and those that indicate serious interest and time for the salesperson to close the sale. When equipment is operating at a fraction of capacity, it is quickly analyzed to determine the cause of the deficiency. It is then adjusted, repaired, or, if necessary, replaced to return performance to the desired level. It’s not so easy with human capital investments. In cases of possible deficiency, the sales manager must assess a salesperson’s abilities to perform the required competencies necessary to be effective in the job. This assessment requires identification of potential gaps between actual performance and expected performance. While discussion with individual salespeople regarding performance deficiencies can provide insight and perspective on the issue, this assessment is best done by observing actual job performance so the sales manager can see what is happening. This observation and analysis of performance gaps is crucial in identifying how the rep can be helped to increase his or her effectiveness and profitability. As the sales manager analyzes the various sales team members, the proactive sales manager is also determining how and when to take action to overcome any shortcomings. If only one or two of the reps have gaps in a specific area, one-on-one coaching or an outside training class is typically the easiest and most economical solution. However, if several members of the sales team have similar needs, bringing training to the sales team will provide a consistent and economically sound method of overcoming the gap.

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Communication with Sales Training The sales manager may determine that he or she has the knowledge, expertise, and time to bridge skill and competency gaps of his or her salespeople. Or he or she may find that there is need for professional training. In either case, at this stage the sales manager should communicate with the corporate training department to outline deficiency areas and have the sales training staff help identify any tools available to assist with overcoming the gaps. If your organization does not have a sales training staff, an outside resource can help. Identifying gaps in performance and communicating this with sales training experts help determine whether there are gaps in the current training or whether there are new areas of knowledge or skill development for which materials, tools, or programs must be created.

Support Staff Skill Assessment Sales managers should also regularly assess the skills and abilities of the sales support team. This evaluation helps make sure the time and effort spent by the sales force to acquire customers are reinforced by the people who deal with those customers on an ongoing basis. I have seen relationships that have taken a salesperson months or years to develop be severely damaged in moments by the actions, or inactions, of the people who support these accounts. While the promises salespeople make must be realistic and achievable, it is critical that those promises be carried out by everyone involved in dealing with the customer. Another important part of sales managers’ jobs is to make sure all the segments of the team serving the customer are on the same page working together for the customer. Much of the vocabulary of business today is financially driven. Return on investment (ROI) is a metric used in most organizations to one degree or another. One of the major investments made in salespeople is the initial training that covers the products and services they offer to potential clients. In some cases this training may be a few days long. Training for more technical products or services can take up to a year before the salesperson is up to speed. In most cases, the timeframe will fall somewhere in between. Regardless of the length of time their people are

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in training, there are several key steps that effective sales managers follow to leverage their return on training investments (ROTI).

1. Prepare Participants for Training Prior to the training program, the effective sales manager: 1. Sets an appointment with the salesperson to discuss the training program he or she will be attending. 2. At the meeting, discusses why the salesperson will be attending and which skills the person should focus on for the job. 3. Stresses the importance of attendance, participation, and involvement in the training. 4. Instructs new sales reps on cultural issues of the company, such as appropriate dress, conduct, and corporate protocol. 5. Sets an appointment, within a week after returning from training, to discuss the trainee’s experience at the training session and identify the key skills he or she will be using on the job. 6. Establishes how they can best work together to reinforce and assist in the use of the new skills on the job. In cases in which a salesperson is going to be away at training for a prolonged period, the sales manager may schedule phone conversations or exchange emails to discuss the class and specific progress toward the objectives that were determined. These communications are significant demonstrations of the manager’s support and commitment to developing the salesperson. It also helps to establish trust and build a relationship.

2. Debrief the Training When the salesperson returns from the training, it is important that he or she meet with the sales manager the first or second day back on the job to: 1. Discuss the training program and the skills learned; 2. Reinforce the commitment of both parties to utilize the new information and skills; and 3. Establish a coaching schedule for the coming months.

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These discussions can have a tremendous impact on the salesperson’s efforts in transferring his or her new skills from the classroom to the job. The expectations determined by the salesperson and manager will drive the effort. The debriefing is also a time to establish the expectations that the new salesperson will have regarding future training sessions. It is critical to hold these follow-up/coaching sessions as scheduled to demonstrate the sales manager’s commitment to implementing the salesperson’s new skills.

3. Follow Up The four weeks following a salesperson’s return from a training session provide the best opportunity for a sales manager to make one of the greatest financial investments possible for his or her company. Internal research conducted independently at Hewlett-Packard and General Electric, both of which have world-class training programs, showed that the skills that participants gained from participating in their formal training sessions enabled them to perform at the level of a skilled, capable person within their organizations. The most crucial factor affecting the person’s ongoing growth was determined to be the actions of the sales manager immediately after the person’s return from the training session. In the four weeks that followed training, salespeople whose managers spent time with them discussing the training, establishing objectives for skill usage, coaching, encouraging, and correcting and reinforcing the new skills increased their abilities by 100 percent from skill levels they had at the close of the training session. Salespeople whose supervisors did little to no follow-up quickly reverted to their pre-training habits, losing on average 86 percent of the skills gained during the training. In other words, if the cost of a training session with travel, salary, program, and other costs is $5,000, the sales manager who follows up and coaches newly trained salespeople should see a return that will cover the costs of the training session within a relatively short time. Those managers who don’t follow up might as well take $4,300 (86 percent of the $5,000 investment) out to the parking lot and burn it. The following table illustrates the point.

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Return on Training Investment Cost to Attend Training Expected Return on Anticipated Loss (Travel Costs, Trainer Costs, Mgr. Follow-Up No Follow-Up Meeting Costs, etc.) $ 1,000

$ 2,000

<$ 860>

$ 5,000

$10,000

<$4,300>

$10,000

$20,000

<$8,600>

Providing Feedback to Sales Training The encouragement and follow-up with newly trained salespeople has a reward factor built in. From a corporate viewpoint, it is important that sales managers who follow up with their people share information with the corporate training area. The feedback regarding the training and the skills that are brought to the job can be valuable in ensuring the training is structured to what is needed in the field. Feedback enables the training department to correct any weaknesses or reassure corporate that the programs they are offering meet the needs of the salespeople they are designed for.

Modeling Sales Behaviors Sales managers are models of the attitudes, knowledge, and skills they expect from their sales force. Modeling is the most powerful form of behavioral change—period. Sales managers can demonstrate the sales skills they want the salesperson to use by accompanying him or her on a sales call. Coaching sessions can also provide the opportunity to model how probing and questioning skills can be used to guide people to specific points of view; how and when to close a sale or effective techniques in handling objections; or any other aspect of a sales call. Modeling goes beyond coaching situations. When salespeople see their leaders using skills of persuasion in dealing with employee issues rather than just telling someone what to do, when salespeople feel they are treated with the same level of concern they give customers,

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or when their sales managers listen to employee issues, the message reinforces the importance of those skills. In the same way, a sales manager’s organization of sales meetings should reinforce the planning and organization expected of the salespeople in preparing for calls. Even the sales manager’s daily work ethic should demonstrate his or her expectations of the sales force on the job. Sales managers should remember that, by looking at a sales force, you can often see a reflection of their leader. The key message from all of this is that sales managers can show their team daily that the skills that make salespeople effective are skills that make people effective at any level of a business organization and in their private lives as well.

Sales Training and Sales Management The main resource sales managers use to accomplish the primary responsibility of their jobs is the same resource sales trainers need to accomplish their function. That resource is salespeople. In most industries, there is a direct correlation between the number of salespeople in a territory and the degree of market share that company has. The fact that sales managers are willing to take their people out of their territories to participate in training, in many cases at the sales district’s expense, indicates both an expectation and a responsibility to provide training and development that will return those financial and opportunity costs to the salesperson’s district.

Maximizing Resources Due to the costs involved in formal training, it is important that the sales training area continually assess how to deliver as much learning as possible in formats that are compatible with the learning styles and preferences of the learners. Because most salespeople prefer interactive

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classroom training situations, it is important to make these as time and cost-effective as possible. Providing materials which participants can use at home, prior to formal training sessions, can establish a common knowledge base level. Pre-work can focus the time spent in formal, classroom training on skill development and practice with constructive feedback. This can both reduce time off the job and increase skill levels upon completing the training session.

Providing Feedback It is imperative that the sales training area continually reassure sales management that they are getting a fair return on their investment when taking people out of the field for training. Here are some proven ways for the training area to provide feedback to the sales organization. Conduct regular needs analyses to determine whether the programs being offered are meeting the needs of the sales organization. Needs analysis surveys can vary in length and depth, but they should assess the knowledge and skills required to successfully sell in current market segments. The quality of the training and how the internal training programs compare to external programs salespeople have attended should be measured. Also, surveys of what knowledge, skills, and abilities would enable the salespeople to perform even more effectively should be done. Develop surveys for both sales managers and members of the sales force. The surveys should contain similar content but be structured separately. The rationale is to compare and contrast the needs of these groups. Frequently, the results will be somewhat different. Typically, salespeople show more concern with the technical aspects of the job, while sales managers focus more on sales and personal management skills. The needs of each group, while different, are ‘‘real’’ and in many cases may be best handled by blending the needs together. Effective use of the technical information to increase sales and efficiency is an answer to both groups’ concerns. Provide feedback regarding the performance of trainees. Feedback on all areas can be beneficial to the sales manager in determining the

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best developmental plan for a trainee. The salesperson’s willingness to be actively involved in the training process; his or her contributions to any discussions; interactions with the instructors and the other class members; and, of course, mastery of the information and skills presented, are important information for the sales manager. Especially with new hires, trainer inputs on these areas can be extremely helpful in providing direction for sales managers’ follow-up plans. The willingness to contribute in class discussions and activities might indicate the trainee’s willingness to be involved with his or her accounts. Similarly, a participant who seems to dominate the discussions and activities might need to be observed for tendencies to share ‘‘too much’’ information between accounts. All information that training shares with sales managers should be as objective and job-focused as possible. Also, such information must be delivered in a professional, supportive manner. Provide sales management tools. When there are high expectations for sales managers to follow up with the intent to increase the learning and skills of the salespeople, it is important that sales training provide management tools to assist them in performing that function. A packet of information sent to sales managers prior to the people attending training can save time and increase the effectiveness of pre-training preparation. The package should include both agendas for holding a meeting with trainees prior to the training and guidelines for the follow-up meeting. Both meetings should include discussions of the training program and the new skills the trainee will be bringing back to the job. Additional follow-up packages can be given to the trainees to take to their managers or delivered just prior to the end of the training session. The package can provide the sales manager with an outline for a follow-up meeting to set the expectation that new skills are to be used when they return to the field. Provide objectives and skills learned in the training. This information will assist sales managers in reinforcing new skills. For example, the sales manager should listen for open-ended questions, the ‘‘who, what, why, when, where, and how.’’ These questions are more likely to gather

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relevant information than the yes-or-no type used by many salespeople. When coaching, it is important for the sales manager to listen carefully to the types of questions being used and make notes about them and the context in which they were used. This type of information will help the salesperson to analyze his or her behavior during the interview. It is also important that the sales manager model effective questioning skills when coaching the salesperson. For example, in an interview with a prospect, the salesperson may ask the buyer, ‘‘Do you like your current supplier? Do they provide all the services you need? Do you need anything they don’t currently provide?’’ During the coaching session the sales manager could ask the salesperson, ‘‘What was the purpose of those questions?’’ ‘‘How much of the information you were looking for did you actually receive?’’ ‘‘What is an open-ended question you might have asked to get much of the same information you hoped to obtain?’’ If the salesperson does not think of a question to use, the sales manager might ask, ‘‘What do you think might have been the prospect’s response if you had said, ‘Please tell me about your current supplier’?’’ ‘‘How might she have responded if you followed up with, ‘What do you like best about dealing with them?’ or ‘What things do you wish you could change about them?’’’ Using questions to guide the interview reinforces their power and models their use for the salesperson.

Sales Training as a Resource to Sales Managers The more things the sales training department can do to assist sales managers in their coaching and follow-up responsibilities, the better. Also, the more successful sales managers will continue to use the training department as a collaborator in reaching corporate goals and objectives. The training department serving as a resource for sales managers when people are not performing adequately can be a win-win-win situation. When sales managers feel they have a competent resource to assist them, they are more likely to coach and to further use that resource. When sales training perceives itself as an extension of the sales function, and the field perceives them the same way, a new synergy will be developed.

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Sales training can further build their value by providing concise, sales-specific training modules that the sales manager can use to train on a specific sales skill. These can be as simple as short exercises that get the team discussing a specific skill or concept. In my experience, even a focused discussion question can be a great tool, for example, asking how many agree with the statement: ‘‘The most important part of a salesperson’s job is closing the sale.’’ The question can be created by the training group, and the sales manager’s role is to foster a discussion during which all share the reasons they feel as they do. Another tool that has worked for me is a short video segment of a sales call. It can be shown prior to having salespeople discuss what worked well and what could be improved. In effect they become coaches themselves. Salespeople in training can also role play alternative skills or techniques the salesperson in the video might have used. The point is to have the salespeople analyze selling skills, show their knowledge of the sales process, and demonstrate the skills they use with customers. When there is a specific need, it may be beneficial for sales training to assist the sales manager in developing a program that can be conducted onsite. Ideally, it would be created and packaged in a format the sales manager could conduct. In some situations, it may be necessary for a sales trainer to assist with or conduct the program. In either case, developing materials and support for such programs can lead to trust and credibility for the sales training area with the sales managers of the organization.

Creating Sales Management Support For sales training to truly have the support of sales management throughout the organization, it is important to create mutual trust by demonstrating how the efforts of sales training are aligned with the focus and objectives of the organization. There are several keys to building a trust relationship. Regular communication and feedback. First, as we have discussed previously, it is important to regularly communicate with sales managers to gather their input on what is working, what is not working, what

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needs to be kept, and what needs to be changed—and then listening and acting on their feedback. This shows managers that their inputs are valued and needed. Also, when changes are instituted based on input from sales managers, it is important that they be informed of the changes. This may be the only way they will know that their input is valued and used. It also increases the likelihood of continued input. New program information. Another consideration is to provide sales managers with an overview of the new programs, including the needs identified that the programs are designed to meet; the specific objectives of the programs or materials; the key skills that salespeople will take home from the session; and coaching points that sales managers can use when working with the newly trained salespeople in the field. Sales training champions. It is important to continually update sales management on training activities that are occurring, especially if new programs, resources, or materials are being developed. Ideally, there are departments in which new programs can be tested before being rolled out to the entire organization. The use of champions for the training area can help to strengthen sales training’s overall support within management’s ranks. Advisory group. The creation of a sales training advisory group can help to obtain buy-in of sales managers. Such a group, composed of sales executives, influential sales managers, and top-producing salespeople, can provide ongoing feedback to the sales training department. To be effective, this group should meet regularly, although not necessarily frequently. A quarterly or even bi-annual conference via distance technologies can be helpful both in keeping the sales training area on target and in building support for training activities. This group can also be beneficial in the evaluation of new training programs.

Building Relationships Sales is a business of dollars and cents. Long-term accounts are a business of building and maintaining relationships. Gaining and retaining the support of the field for sales training is a business that includes both finances and relationships.

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Gaining Executive Support Support of the vice president of sales or the regional vice presidents goes a long way in building credibility with sales managers and sales staffs. Developing this support requires talking with sales executives about challenges their sales and sales management staffs are facing. These discussions can provide valuable information for determining sales training direction and building the image of sales training as a partner of the corporate sales team. Upper management’s interest in training program ratings or objectives accomplished is typically minimal at best. They want to see the return on training dollars for field staff time invested. Senior managers want to hear, in relevant business terms, what is happening in the marketplace and/or how sales training is dealing with issues limiting the effectiveness of their sales groups. Discussions of management’s issues and opportunities, in metrics they understand, increase their overall support for sales training initiatives. These discussions also contribute to the professional business image of the sales trainer. Support of the executive level also increases the level of credibility sales training brings to the field staff.

Developing Sales Manager Candidates One additional idea to help enhance the role of sales training is to develop a program to prepare high-potential salespeople to move into the role of sales manager. This type of program must come about through collaboration between sales training and the corporate sales area, with sales training taking the lead. The key content areas to be covered, the information to be shared, and the presenters would come from the sales area. Sales training’s role would be to work with the appropriate people from sales. The ideal presenters or facilitators would include executives and managers recognized for their expertise in each specific area. This type of program should include individuals who are responsible for hiring into the sales management positions. The involvement of these executives provides potential sales management candidates the opportunity to become acquainted with key executives. More importantly,

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it enables the executives the chance to ‘‘shop the talent’’ and become acquainted with potential candidates. The typical agenda for this ‘‘So You Want to Be a Sales Manager’’ program would cover forecasting, budgeting, market segmentation, local sales plan development and implementation, establishing sales quotas and goals, finding and hiring salespeople, coaching and counseling, and developing and implementing incentive programs. In addition, the training must include the role and responsibility of developing the sales team. This section of the training would best be done by a champion from the field who not only supports sales training, but also walks the talk in developing her or his sales staff. There can be substantial benefits in providing the opportunity for salespeople to get to know and be known by the sales executives and allowing the executives the opportunity to evaluate a potential candidate. This type of program can build internal support for the sales training area by demonstrating that the focus of sales training is broader than merely what training can offer today. Perhaps the most significant benefit for the organization is that the program provides top-quality salespeople with information about the sales management position. Not every good salesperson will be a good sales manager. Having this information would enable them to make a better decision on whether or not to apply for such a position. It is better to have a top salesperson pass on management opportunities now rather than change his or her mind after taking a promotion. I’ve seen several new sales managers leave the organization to go back to selling with another company. It’s a lose-lose proposition for all involved.

Summary In most organizations, sales managers ARE the ‘‘real’’ sales trainers. While corporate sales trainers may spend a few days or weeks with salespeople during the course of a year, sales managers spend months with them. Sales managers determine how the knowledge and skills imparted during

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training sessions actually are utilized in the field. Because of this fact, sales training needs to assist field managers in increasing profitable sales and market share through their sales teams. The quality of the training and the support available are critical for sales training’s programs. The goal of sales training should be to make it as easy as possible for sales managers to accomplish their responsibilities while focusing on the bottom line. Questions for Reflection • What are the corporate goals that sales training is contributing or can contribute to achieving? • What is being done in the organization to develop future sales managers? Is there a bench of candidates? Who is responsible for developing that pool? Are development efforts and training programs under way now to prepare them? • What is the rate of return on training investment in salespeople? How is it measured? • What tools do we have available for sales management’s use in sales meetings to develop their people? • What tools do we provide for sales managers to prepare and debrief salespeople attending training? • How are sales managers held accountable for developing their sales teams? Are development areas on their yearly appraisals? • Are sales managers who do a good job developing their sales teams recognized? Is it a talent that is valued in the organization? • Do sales leaders develop their sales management teams? Or do they put them in positions and wait to see whether they are successful? • Do the organization’s sales training resources understand the business issues the sales force is facing? Are they aligned to help?

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11 Productive New Hires, Faster You Don’t Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression Renie McClay

P

ETER JENSEN HAS been up since 4 a.m., afraid he would

miss the alarm clock’s buzz for his first day of work. He has every reason to be excited. His new company is the leading producer of electronic widgets. His job of selling this product will be a piece of cake, once he understands the technology. Not to say he wasn’t successful before. He was a top salesman at his old company, but he felt they had started to take him for granted. He really wasn’t looking for a move, but this opportunity was too good to pass up and he was ready for a new challenge. He smiled at Leslie, the receptionist, as he signed in. After fifteen minutes he started to wonder if he had misheard his start time, or maybe even his start day. Just when he was about to ask, Leslie pointed to the hallway leading back to the offices and told Peter he could grab a cup of 199

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coffee and someone would be right with him. As it turned out, Bill, his manager, was called out of the office and the department’s administrative assistant, Carol, was going to show him around. She showed him to an empty cubicle, handed him a stack of papers to go through, and assured him IT would find him and issue his laptop. He started to feel the excitement drain from him when he realized the papers were for human resources. There was no information about the new products he would be selling. The phone on his desk rang and he did not know if he should answer, so he let it ring. Carol returned and informed him that Bill wanted him to prepare for some ride-along sales calls later in the week. She explained that, once he had his laptop, he would have access to all the training materials he would need to get up to speed. Peter asked if he was to meet with anyone else on his first day and Carol said she was sorry, but she did not know. Peter sat down and thought about how confident he was at his old job just last week and about how utterly clueless he was feeling right now. There are so many ways we can fail our new employees on their first day of work—ways that will change the way they feel about the company and their decision to join. Highly promising, high-performing new hires don’t have high expectations; they simply want to feel welcome and want to receive the information they need to perform their jobs successfully. With a little planning, it is possible to exceed a new hire’s expectations and solidify the commitment. Their enthusiasm and energy will be propelled with confidence and knowledge when they are expertly welcomed into the organization.

On-Boarding Programs ‘‘New employees decide whether they feel at home or not in the first three weeks in a company, and 4 percent of new employees leave a job after a disastrous first day.’’ The Wynhurst Group, an Arlington, Virginia-based human resources consulting firm

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It is good to think through what a person experiences when he or she is new to your company. You really do only have one chance to make a good impression. I have been on-boarded in several organizations. I have also designed on-boarding for organizations. I have helped organizations organize the multitude of information needed for a successful Day 1 Orientation and worked with marketing to design product training appropriate for newly hired salespeople. My experience in creating on-boarding for organizations includes several Fortune 500 companies and also several smaller companies, including a start-up firm. Some of the industries include consumer products, healthcare, packaging, recruiting, building products, and technology. How many people have been through a painful Day 1 Orientation of talking heads and have spent other days feeling unproductive and not part of the team? I have facilitated orientations and coordinated lots of functions in building the content for the orientations. This chapter is the result of learnings from all of these experiences. Most people would agree that a solid foundation for a new sales employee is important. What everyone doesn’t know is what a welldesigned and comprehensive new employee orientation program looks like. Every company starts someplace, and a well-organized Day 1 Orientation is where many organizations start. (Do not underestimate how much work goes into a Day 1 Orientation!) It is often a consistent way to bring new employees into the organization. Give them the critical benefits information they need, orient them to the company culture, show them the products or services, give them an org chart so they can see where they fit in. In a headquarters location this would also include a facility tour and getting the required identification. And it often includes some intranet and Internet orientation. Having a clear, consistent Day 1 experience is a fabulous way to ensure new hires are getting what they need and have a positive view of the organization they are working for. On-boarding goes beyond Day 1 and looks at how a person learns to do his or her job. How does he or she learn the systems, software, and knowledge needed to do the job?

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Is on-boarding a new term for you? On-boarding means the process of bringing people into the organization and giving them the information, tools, and knowledge they need to successfully do their jobs. Each organization gets to decide when it begins and ends. For example, it can start with the job offer or it can start with Day 1; it can end in four weeks or in six months. Sales positions vary in complexity, so the amount of time to get ‘‘up to speed’’ will fluctuate as well. If you hire people from your industry and your products are not overly complex, you may want a plan for the new hire’s first couple of months. For more complex industries or when there are compliance issues, the process will take longer. In either case, the objective is to give them what they need so they can be productive faster and shorten their ‘‘time to market.’’ How do you know whether your organization has its act together? You may not. New employees are reluctant to complain. An on-boarding process is often a reflection of their manager, and it isn’t good practice to start complaining about your manager. So many people fumble their way through, seeing that it could be easier and being frustrated. When employees are located in an office, it is often much easier to walk down the hall or go to the break area to ask questions. In a sales force, people are often not located in the same building, so gathering information will be more difficult. And when salespeople have an entire legal pad full of questions, who will they ask? They may save only the important questions for their managers, not wanting to look stupid. Who will they ask the rest of the questions? There is definitely a cost to on-boarding people effectively. The cost is in effort, resources, as well as money. But think about it this way: What is the cost of not on-boarding people well? What is the cost of losing people you have invested six months to a year in? How much does turnover or inefficiency cost? If it sounds as though I am evangelizing for efficiently bringing people into the company, I am. Sales leaders work hard to hire talented people. If you treat new hires right, you’ll get a return faster. ‘‘The cost of losing an employee in the first year is estimated to be at least three times the person’s salary.’’ The Wynhurst Group

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Don’t forget when you are calculating the cost of on-boarding, that when the new sales associate visits your customers, she is your company to them. What she does and what she says represent your organization. You need to be certain that she knows what she is doing. The quicker you get her up to speed on your products or services and systems, the quicker she will generate revenue. Not only are these trained employees equipped with quality information, but there will be fewer missteps and errors often associated with inexperienced employees.

Benefits of On-Boarding Efficiency for all. Shortening the transition time for these employees also is more effective and efficient for the resources who participate in the training. When no formal on-boarding is done, one-off or personalized sessions happen during the regular business day, disrupting the productivity of other employees. When an organized, predictable schedule for on-boarding is adopted, all participants can be more effective. Consistency. If there is a program in place, you know that each and every person has received the same foundational information about the company and what is being sold. Control of content and presentation. Because you and the organization have worked together to create the content, you are in control of the way the information is presented. Strong trainers. You identify the best people to teach your sales force about your company’s products and services. Sometimes this is the product managers, other times it is existing high-performing sales professionals or sales managers, and other times it may be you. Choosing to train your new employees with existing personnel creates an environment for improved networking connections. Training on internal systems and software will help improve productivity. Some companies have internal trainers and others use outside facilitators. These sessions can be done with face-to-face workshops or virtually. Build camaraderie. Salespeople, by virtue of their position, are often out in the field and isolated. If your new sales associates interact with

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people from different departments during their orientation, they are less likely to feel alone. They will be confident about picking up the phone and asking a question of someone they have already met and worked with. They will be more productive and effective. The time in the office will be offset by the ease of their transition once they do start calling on customers.

The Challenges of On-Boarding Complexity. Why can’t you just request that on-boarding occur and have your program designed by the end of the month? There are a number of reasons that on-boarding tends to be a complex solution. One reason is that, for most organizations, there is a lot to learn. Gathering all the topics, making sure the information is updated, and figuring out the best way to deliver the information can be quite a project. The information needed very likely exists in many places in the organization (marketing, human resources, sales information, customer service, and pricing, to name a few).

One organization identified ninety-eight line items that were essential for a new hire to learn in order to be successful. These included sixteen different market segmentations and five different vertical markets (such as government and healthcare). Breaking this down into topic areas simplified this information. Major topic areas identified were Welcome to the Organization, Selling and Customer Service, Policies and Procedures, Resources, Technology/Software, Performance Management, Solutions/Products, and Markets.

Timing. It is important for sales managers to drive the training of their people. There is often pressure in having an open territory, and it is tempting to put someone in before he is ready. It is important

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for everyone to understand the value of the preparation and training time, and the price for putting people in front of customers too soon. If a newbie doesn’t understand the industry, the customer, or the products, a negative impression can be made—and this isn’t the new person’s fault.

Roxanne was introduced to her customers in week two, because the manager had more than one territory open. During class in corporate headquarters attending a product training session, she was fielding calls from her customers. ‘‘My customers are calling me with issues. Not only do I not know the answers, I don’t even understand the questions. I feel like I am losing credibility and I haven’t even started.’’

This is disheartening. Roxanne wanted to be successful, and eventually was. But she didn’t have the right information or the right resources to solve the problems effectively. She was learning with a lot of heat. It doesn’t have to be that way. What is the lesson? Decide when a person should be introduced to his or her new territory. What does the person need to know and demonstrate in order to be ready? For some industries it is weeks before new salespeople meet their customers—for some it is months.

Sales Management Support of On-Boarding ‘‘I have seen a comprehensive on-boarding program quickly change the minds of even the most skeptical managers,’’ shares industrial organizational psychologist Cori Kinney Bjorklund. ‘‘They do a complete reversal in their attitude toward the time investment required of even their revenue-producing new hires. They experience the exponential benefit of the investment when the program fits the needs of the employee and of the business. A successful program is not difficult to accomplish either. When an organization spends a little time really

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considering what the new employee needs and involves the in-house subject-matter experts, all parties win.’’

Getting Started The first thing to do to develop a successful on-boarding program is to define the goals of the program. Organization leaders (this may be Sales, it may be HR) should define what they are looking for and the duration of the program. Many organizations have a dedicated resource managing the sales curriculum. Leaders have to decide where the on-boarding program starts, where it ends, and where the ongoing sales training curriculum begins. It is very difficult to think about each of the steps for creating this program in a vacuum. When you begin to determine the needs of the organization, you automatically start thinking of the topics to cover in your program. When you consider which topics are critical to new hires’ success, you will also begin to ponder how quickly they must be trained on each. Suddenly there are more questions than answers. Consider creating a matrix that contains a column for each of the following steps in the development process: • What do they need to learn? • Which roles need to know what? • How much do the salespeople need to know, and where is the content (already exists or needs to be developed or updated)? • When does the new hire need to know it (Day 1, Week 1, Week 2, etc.)? • Who are the subject-matter experts who know the info? • How will this be delivered, that is, what is the delivery method? Using a matrix allows you to consider all the steps simultaneously. Refer to the exhibits at the end of this chapter for samples of a content matrix, a post-orientation evaluation, a sample new-hire checklist, and a sample orientation agenda.

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Exhibit 11-1. On-Boarding Matrix Delivery Resource SubjectTopic

Which

Matter

Priority

Expert

Level

(What)

When Roles

How

(Who)

(H,M,L) Notes

Company

Day 1 All

Computer-

HR

H

Info and

Employees Based

Org.

Currently Provided

Training

Structure Benefits Review and

Day 1 All

Classroom or HR

H

Employees One-on-One

Currently Provided

Docs Products and

Day 1 All

Classroom

Marketing H

Employees

Need to Develop for

Services

All

Overview

Employees

In-Depth Products

Week 1 All Sales

Classroom

Employees

Product

H

Manage-

and

Need to Develop

ment

Services Training In-Depth Competi-

Week 1 All Sales

Computer-

Employees Based

tion

Training

Product Manage-

H

Need to Develop

ment

Training

Determine Needs What do they need to learn? Some organizations do extensive requirement gathering, while others will rely on the knowledge and expertise of a few key managers. Whatever situation you find yourself in, start asking for input from others in your organization. What is currently being

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done? Think about the reasons you want to create not just a one-day orientation, but a structured training for at least the first month on the job. What types of information are important to the success of a sales professional in your organization? A great source of information is people who have been in the job a year or less. Ask their opinions on what would be important for new people to learn the first few days and weeks. Brainstorm the topics to make a master list, then prioritize the items into those that are important and those that are just nice to accomplish, but not critical. Start with what needs to be rock solid on the person’s first day. Whatever your current situation, the needs analysis is the first step toward identifying an audience and determining the scope and specific content of your program. Another great resource is the sales managers. Call on rock star district managers who have a solid on-the-job training plan for their new hires. They will know what new people need to learn to be successful.

When sales reps came in for our Selling Skills class, it was evident which managers did a great job of on-boarding their new people. During a lunch conversation, one person talked about his regional sales manager. During his first week he received a personal letter (on actual paper) with a company logo shirt welcoming him to the team. The rep next to him said he still hadn’t heard from his RSM and it was weeks before he even knew his name. What does this say about the priorities of the RSM?

Define the Audience: Who Needs to Know What? Take a look at the needs you identified. Consider the types of sales professionals in your organization. Do they all need the same basic knowledge to perform their jobs, or is there special information that some need? Do all salespeople receive the same selling skills training? What about negotiating? Do you have technical and non-technical salespeople

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who have some overlapping needs? Will all new employees receive some basic company and product/service training and others receive additional information that will be helpful or critical to their position? Not every piece of information will be important to every new employee. Consider suggesting that all departments, not just Sales, should learn basic product knowledge if that is not already required. It is a powerful message to send if you want everyone in the organization to be knowledgeable about your products and/or services.

Define Scope, Content, and Objectives How much do they need to know and where is it? Determine the scope of your on-boarding program. What are your objectives for the program? List all of your objectives for creating or updating your on-boarding program. As much as possible, write them as measurable goals, ones that can be reported on after the program is implemented, giving you concrete evidence that the time and effort were well spent. Here are some sample objectives. After completing the on-boarding program, a new sales associate will be able to: • Expertly and consistently present product benefits to clients (within four weeks of the start date). • Identify customer issues and recommend solutions. • Effectively use the voice mail, email, and customer relationship management systems within the organization. • Report that his or her manager, team, and/or support staff is accessible, responsive, and supportive. Make a list of all the topics pertinent to a new employee. Some of them may be required immediately, and other topics could wait until the employee has been in the position for a period of time. Consider everything. Identify which items are already covered. Make a complete list and then determine the time frames for each. Be sure to think logically and systematically about the kind of information that would be needed

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if you walked in off the street as a new employee. A list of topics to consider is shown in Exhibit 11.2.

Exhibit 11-2. Sample On-Boarding List Company  Meet the Executives  History (Timeline)  Mission/Vision  Business Strategy/Model  Org Chart/Locations  Partners  Go to Market  Publications  Tour/Logistics/ID/Mail Room  Workstation  Restrooms  Laptop/PC/Logins and Passwords  Phone/Voice Mail System  Email System  Intranet/Internet  Help Desk HR  Corporate Culture  Core Values  Dress Code  Safety/OSHA  Harassment Policy  Vacation, Holidays, Sick Time (Time Off)

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 Travel/Expense  Benefits  Employee Development  Performance Reviews  Compensation  EAP  Policies and Procedures Sales and Marketing  Market Segments  Industry Overview  About Our Customers  About Our Competitors  Company Jargon/Acronyms  Mentor Assignment  Key Departments  Customer Service  Pricing  Samples  Who to Contact if . . .  Office Supplies  Systems Training  Product Training  Quotes/Processing Orders  Processing Returns  Forms  Sales Cycle  Marketing Programs

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 Pricing  Samples  Anti-Trust Law  Role of Customer Service  Business Cards Technology  Computer/Phone/BlackBerry/Equipment  Customer Relationship Management  Sales Information System  Microsoft Office Training  Google Search Training  Work Out Any Bugs While On-Site On-the-Job Training  Introduction to Mentor  Job Shadowing with Peers (Field Trainers)  Introduction to Their Territory and Major Customers Using your own prioritized list of needs, determine how much your organization can commit to at this time. Can you implement everything all at once, or do you need to take a phased approach to the program? Comprehensive programs can span from a day to a week of full-time training, with additional activities and experiences that reach into the first few months of employment.

Product Training Mentioned above as one of the many topics to include in your onboarding process, product training for sales associates is really not optional. When you provide your employees with a solid foundation on your products and services, you can have confidence that you can deliver what they are selling. If your organization sells tangible products,

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as opposed to services, there is no better way to prepare your sales force than to let them touch and feel the products, speak with the people who build or design them, and provide them ample time to fully understand their capabilities. When the time comes to discuss delivery methods, this is one topic that must include an interactive component. You want to ensure consistency in the way your products and services are sold in the marketplace. Salespeople really need to understand: • • • •

What is the product? What is it used for? How is this product different from the competitor’s? What are the right questions to ask the customer (their buying criteria)? • What problem does the product solve for the customer? The tendency is to dump specification sheets on the new sales associate, having him or her memorize facts and figures instead of presenting the information in a way that translates to the customer. It is true that your employees must be knowledgeable about the specifications, but if they internalize the purpose of the product, the problems it can solve for the customer, they will be better off selling with that applied knowledge. The specification sheets can always be referred to for the detail of each model. Product training is a topic that lends itself well to self-study or computer-based training. New hires can learn the basics with one of those methods (make sure to include some product sample components for those hands-on learners). Then they can come together for a faceto-face or live webcast discussion of some customer scenarios. The discussion will help them to apply what they have learned, which aids in understanding and retention.

Define Timing The ideal timing for imparting critical information to your new employee is as soon as possible. ASAP. However, this is not reasonable. Your prioritized list of topics will help determine the order in which you

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present the information. Remember to balance the needs of the employee with the needs of the organization. Yes, you want your sales associate generating revenue as quickly as possible, but he also must know how to file his expense reports and how to check voice mail. These somewhat smaller items become a distraction when they are not addressed. One of the challenges is covering all the material that needs to be covered. Assuming there are face-to-face sessions, self-study materials (either paper or online), and online sessions (audio recordings, video recordings, recorded webcasts, or online learning), prioritize the information according to when the person will need the information. For instance, what topics will be covered Day 1, Week 1, Week 3, Week 4? Make a list of all that should be done and have a signoff sheet for when they are completed. I like having some kind of incentive associated with the completion. Maybe it is a company shirt or becoming eligible for a bonus. It is easy to do the key things and then get out into the territory and not have the rest of the information needed. It is also good for the manager to have some skin in the game for making sure this happens efficiently. If the training is seen as adding value and if the VP of sales clearly communicates his or her expectations, it will be easier to enforce completion. When determining timing, you must also consider what other resources are needed to deliver the training. Ideally, as we will discuss in the delivery method section, you will want your new employees to interact with as many people in the organization as possible. This broadens their network and grounds them in the organization. When you ask other departments to support your initiatives, you will obviously need to be aware of the time commitment on their part. Questions to consider: • How often do you hire people into your organization? • Do you do most of your hiring around the same time of year? • Can you consolidate the new-hire process for all or most of your new employees? Or, do you hire sporadically and need to have a more flexible time frame for on-boarding?

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It’s important to consider that critical topics are best served in the first few days of employment. Waiting for important information creates doubt and frustration for new employees. Do your needs require you to consider a more comprehensive plan that spans for the new employee’s first six to eight weeks of employment? You may determine that a roadmap is the best way to track the accomplishment of your learning objectives. Your roadmap would include content that is necessary the first few days of employment and contain a checklist of activities and information required each week thereafter. Some organizations hire so few people that they save up the new hires for an orientation that happens at a later date (it can be a resource drain to have a Day 1 orientation for one person). Other companies hire consistently and have orientations running weekly for new employees. It is important to plan your orientation activities as close to the start date of your new employees as possible to have the greatest impact. Most new employees need a transition time to adjust to their new company, position, and commute and to complete paperwork. If your organization is decentralized, you may consider sending all of your new hires to the corporate office to ensure consistency in the delivery of information and to establish rapport within the team. If possible, I recommend bringing people in for a corporate orientation. ‘‘In’’ can refer to the corporate headquarters or to a remote office location. Global companies will need a culturally inclusive version that covers the same material. This is where they hear about the culture and obtain a larger view of the organization and company mission. It is also great for them to meet customer service, marketing, and other people they will be interacting with (if it cannot be in person, consider having a webcast). I have known sales leaders who schedule their time around those visits, so they can meet the new people and perhaps take them out to dinner. It depends on the size of the sales force and the number of new hires coming in, but at some point new people meeting the sales leaders will help to engage them in the vision.

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Identify Resources and Tools There are several ways you can build content and deliver the newhire experience. Resources are people and technology that provide the content to your new hire. The resources and their availability also help determine the delivery method. It is critical that managers usher the new hire properly into the organization. A list of possible resources for your training should include the following. Managers —Managers are key resources in the on-boarding process. Best practices include imparting the knowledge of the manager to the new employee. You also gain the added benefit of establishing the relationship between employee and manager at an early stage. Communication between employees in most industries is critical to success. When managers take an active role in on-boarding, the transition goes more smoothly because the manager can coach and correct the employee before he has the chance to form unproductive routines or make poor judgment calls due to his or her limited knowledge. Managers need to communicate clear expectations to the new people about their training period. Subject-Matter Experts (SMEs)— It is important for someone who knows the subject well to present the topic. Finding the right balance of information and good communication skills is important. If your organization employs remote employees and a face-to-face encounter is not feasible, then consider a well-thought-out series of phone calls, webcasts, emails, and/or computer-based training modules created specifically for the employees to impart knowledge and information. Human Resources —Having several different people also involved with the on-boarding process speeds up the networking within the organization. Your new employee already feels welcome and comfortable when she has met with and talked to the person who handles benefits. When she has a question, she now not only knows whom to call, but has already met that person. Product Managers —It is often the product managers who have intimate knowledge of the products and can facilitate interactive discussion and dialogue around proper selling techniques. Sometimes the

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person who knows the product the best wants to tell WAY too much to a new person. Finding the right amount of information is important. It may be a staged approach: self-study for some basics, face-to-face, or e-learning modules for the complete picture, then advanced product training. Some companies with lots of product lines or complex products have a certification program to ensure the sales force is equipped. Mentors —Mentors are used to provide additional support and coaching for new hires. I recommend assigning a mentor for the first six months of employment, since new people have so much to learn about the company, products, and industry. I also recommend field trainers (perhaps peers) to help with on-the-job training. Technology — Consider any internal systems that provide information or training to current employees. You may have an intranet that was designed with tutorials about important topics and possibly about your products or services. Computer-based training can be created to cover portions of the content, processes, and procedures that are not as complex. They could be used to reinforce product training or other topics. Other questions to consider when determining resources include: How much time are managers able to spend training the new employee? What kind of budget do you have? Is there a company-designated amount of time someone is considered a new employee? Are there other programs already in place to leverage for your new salespeople? Will you try to incorporate other necessary training?

Define Delivery Methods We have touched on a few of the delivery methods available. Again, look at your audience, the list of topics to cover, and the best resources and think about how to most effectively and efficiently accomplish the goals of your program. Most likely you will use a blended technique where many of the methods are utilized for variety, cost-effectiveness, and feasibility. Commonly used methods of delivery will likely include face-to-face training. This usually works best for Day 1 to promote

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the organizational culture, and skill building sessions like selling skills, negotiating, and presentation skills. The rest of the on-boarding may also include virtual/remote training (webcasts, conference calls, video calls), computer-based training (good for complex content and can happen on-demand), paper-based/self-guided training (may be a resource or reference tool or for certain topics).

Measuring Success Using the learning objectives identified during the design, define the measures of success for your program. The first step in measuring success is to find out via surveys what the participants think of the training. Evaluations completed at the end of the on-boarding give you an idea of how satisfied participants were with what they thought was important walking into their new positions. Longer-term surveys collect their thoughts after several weeks or months on the job. Often these follow-up surveys are more valuable because they are based on what the employee now knows is important to the position. Tangible results of the training are important to validate the effort. For example, if your program has as a learning objective that new hires will be able to ‘‘expertly and consistently deliver the corporate sales presentation to clients within three weeks of their start date,’’ then it will be important to keep track of this milestone to prove it is accurate. Certainly, to measure this objective, some specific and quantifiable behaviors and/or outcomes must be determined. These statistics can prove that behaviors were affected positively; that because of the training, your sales force is now better prepared to be successful in selling your product or service. Think about other things that will show the organization that the time and effort of the training were valuable. What are the measurable behaviors or results that can be tracked back to the program? How will the program’s success be measured by the organization (outsiders looking in)? Here are some criteria to consider measuring: • If product and service training is part of the program, can your new employee articulate the company’s offerings on a sales call?

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• Can your new hire enter expense reports accurately and according to policy? • Can new hires describe issues in the industry? • Does the on-boarding program receive high marks on the evaluations as being productive and helpful? • Is the project manager continually improving the content and delivery of the program?

Update and Improve As with any training, constant improvement to the information and process is inevitable. Content will change as your products change. Job aids and computer-based training modules will need to be updated as processes and procedures evolve with the organization. Once you have committed to providing your new hires with the best information you can offer, you are committed to keep the information current or you will find yourself right back where you started—with new hires feeling in the dark and providing less than accurate information to your customers. Be diligent about updates and improvements, and the larger, up-front investment made on the program will be well worth the effort. It may make sense to plan for quarterly updates to the program.

Summary If your organization does not currently have any sort of formalized on-boarding program and you are starting from scratch, the task can seem quite daunting. However, if you prioritize the needs of your new sales force, balancing what you now recognize as the needs of your new employee (to feel welcome, connected, and informed) as well as the needs of the organization (to have a productive and effective new talent to sell your product), you can make changes to the way you bring someone into the organization. This will positively impact everyone’s experience with the transitioning in of new salespeople. If your organization is already covering some of the basics with your new employees, this is your opportunity to shorten the salespeople’s time

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to market, to make them more knowledgeable with less negative impact on the business and more potency in their selling techniques. You will find yourself in fewer situations where the rookie has over-promised and under-delivered or where your customers don’t have confidence in the salesperson. Equip them, help them get what they need with less frustration. And make them productive, faster! Questions for Reflection • How are you currently bringing people into the organization? • What is corporate’s existing orientation program for all new employees? • Are Sales’ needs adequately covered? • What resources are already available? • What are the critical topics a new employee needs covered? • How much time can be dedicated to the orientation? • How much time does it take new hires now to be productive?

Day 1

All Employees

Physical Tour

Facilities Department

Department N/A

Classroom

Facility Tour

All Employees

Human Resources

Day 1

N/A

Corporate Culture

Human Resources

Product Management

Product Management

Department

Classroom

CBT

CBT

Paperwork

All Employees

Day 1

Employees N/A

Benefits Review and

All Sales

Training

Employees Week 1

In-Depth Competition

High

Services Training

All Sales

(Continued)

Currently Provided

Currently Provided

Currently Provided

Need to Develop

Need to Develop

Week 1

Need to Develop for All Employees

High

Department Sales

Currently Provided

Notes

In-Depth Products and

All Employees

Communications

Marketing

Subject-Matter Expert

Delivery Resource/

Overview

Day 1

Computer-Based

Method

Delivery

Classroom

High

All Employees

Audience

Products and Services

Day 1

Timing

Training

N/A

Level

Priority

Organization Structure

Company Info and

Topic

Exhibit 11-3. Content Matrix Example

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221

Medium Low

Field Ride-Alongs

Mentor Program Employees

Months

One-on-One

Calls

Employees All Sales

Shadowing Sales

Aids

Training and Job

Computer-Based

All Field Sales

First Six

Month 1

All Employees

Hiring/Reporting

Assigned Mentor

Sales Department

Accounting Department

Day 1

Face-to-Face

Need to Develop

Need to Develop

Currently Provided

Currently Provided

Need to Develop

Need to Develop

Currently Provided

Notes

222

and Procedures

N/A

All Employees

Time and Expense Policies

Week 1

Department

Information Technology

Manager

N/A

Employees

All Sales

Expectations

Job Responsibilities and

System Training

Management (CRM)

Week 1

Classroom

High

Customer Relationship

Information Technology

Department

Computer-Based

Webcast

Aids

All Employees

Safety/Quality

Subject-Matter Expert

Delivery Resource/

Recorded

Method

Delivery

Training and Job Department

Day 1

All Employees

Audience

etc.)

Medium

Corporate Systems (Voice

Week 1

Timing

Mail, Email, BlackBerry,

N/A

Level

Priority

Safety Topics

Topic

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Exhibit 11-4. Sample Post-Orientation Evaluation Circle Your Department/Job Title: Field Sales Sales Support Manager Other Content --------------------------------------------------Did the information improve your Yes No understanding of XYZ Company? --------------------------------------------------Will this information assist you Yes No with identifying business opportunities for the organization? --------------------------------------------------Can you describe the basic organizational Yes No structure of XYZ Company? --------------------------------------------------Can you describe the basic service Yes No offerings of XYZ Company? --------------------------------------------------Please rate each topic for how beneficial it was: Vision Poor Fair Excellent Values Poor Fair Excellent Brand Poor Fair Excellent Team Building Poor Fair Excellent Organization Poor Fair Excellent Valuing Diversity Poor Fair Excellent Preventing Harassment Poor Fair Excellent Methodology Poor Fair Excellent Strategic Education Poor Fair Excellent Products and Services Poor Fair Excellent --------------------------------------------------On the whole, did the presentations have Yes No a consistent look and feel? --------------------------------------------------Were the materials on-topic? Yes No --------------------------------------------------Were the presentations visually interesting? Yes No --------------------------------------------------What other information do you need or want?

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What were the top three things you learned during orientation?

--------------------------------------------------What information was least important to you? Why?

--------------------------------------------------What would you have like to know more about?

--------------------------------------------------Delivery Approach Were the learning activities used in this Yes No orientation helpful to you? --------------------------------------------------Which activity was most helpful to you? --------------------------------------------------Can you immediately apply what you learned? Yes No --------------------------------------------------Did you find working in a group helpful? Yes No --------------------------------------------------Is there benefit in getting to know Yes No others during orientation? --------------------------------------------------Did the facilitator(s) maintain a Yes No positive and energetic demeanor? --------------------------------------------------Was the facilitator knowledgeable Yes No on the subject matter? ---------------------------------------------------

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--------------------------------------------------On the whole, was there an appropriate balance Yes No between lecture and class participation/activities? --------------------------------------------------Did you enjoy the sessions? Yes No --------------------------------------------------Did the orientation meet your expectations? Yes No --------------------------------------------------Did the orientation exceed your expectations? Yes No --------------------------------------------------Would you change anything about this class? Yes No If yes, what?

Why would you change it?

How would you change it?

---------------------------------------------------

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Exhibit 11-5. Sample New Hire/Manager Checklist Before New Hire’s Start Date  Request Phone  Request Laptop  Request Cube Assignment  Request Network ID and Password, Other Required Sign-Ons  Schedule Orientation  Arrange Department Lunch On New Hire’s Start Date  Review Benefits  Review New Employee Paperwork  Benefits Forms  Direct Deposit  Office Guidelines/Handbook  Corporate Quality Program and ISO Registrations  Department Org Structure  Review Voice Mail  Review Email  Passwords and Log-Ins from IT  Equipment Distribution  Tour  Review Work Hours, Schedules, Lunches, and Breaks  Time Sheets/Entry  Expense Sheets/Entry and Policies  Internet and Intranet Use  General Expectations

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227

 Introductions to Key Staff  Review Supply Orders  Dress Code

Exhibit 11-6. Sample Orientation Agenda Monday Flow

Topics and Learning Objectives

Tools Used and Exercises

Who’s on the Introductions: Swap names • Icebreaker exercise to team? and vital information with build rapport office mates (30 minutes) Local Organizational • Customized Structure: Key roles/people organization charts in the office, including human resources and administrative support (15 minutes) Give me the Office Logistics: Parking, • Office tour/voice mail lay of the land public transportation, IDs, instructions copying, faxing, phones, voicemail, restaurants in the area, and other basic information (15 minutes) Benefits, Compensation, and Employee Development

Benefits and Compensation: Enough info to make benefits elections and to understand the compensation structure (1 hour) (Continued)

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Flow

Topics and Learning Objectives

Tools Used and Exercises

Performance Appraisals and Development Programs: When do they happen, what forms are used, how do I get training approved? (45 minutes) Getting paid

Time and Expense Reporting: How to report time and expenses: policies and procedures, if applicable (1 hour, 30 minutes)

• User Guide

Using resources

Systems Training: Key systems tools and their use in day-to-day activities (2 hours)

• User Guide

What client names should I recognize?

Business Development and Local Client Review: Who are our key clients and what is our history with them? (30 minutes)

Fun stuff

Recognition Awards, • Event Calendar Special Events and Programs: Dates for summer picnics, holiday parties, office meetings, etc. (15 minutes)

Total Elapsed Approx. 7 hours Time

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Tuesday Flow

Topics and Learning Objectives

Tools Used and Exercises

WHO is You Are XYZ Co! Personal • Interview and introduce XYZ Co.? and Team Introductions the person sitting next to you • Guided activity of questions to get to know your project team (learning team) Vision Module: Mission Statement and Corporate Goals

• Use applicable information on Central to further demonstrate points made about Learning Objectives: merger and/or the You will be able to: direction of the • Relate our history organization • Describe the building of • Change management XYZ Co. exercise (goal: to facilitate • Relate our merger new employees’ approach awareness of the XYZ • Understand the merger Co. merger environment environment and also more • Identify resources for understanding, receptive information on Project and flexible to change) e*merge (Continued)

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Flow

Topics and Learning Objectives

Tools Used and Exercises

• Explain the opportunities and challenges involved with change • Articulate the implications of being a publicly held company WHAT do Brand: Explanation of our • Brand Video we do? external branding campaign Learning Objectives: You will be able to: • Know your role in supporting the value of the brand Offerings Portfolio and Client Sales Presentation

• Client sales presentation exercise • Case Study: The Learning Objectives: DeskTop Toy Company You will be able to: is looking for help. They • Identify business have a small, but opportunities to build established company that our organization through produces and distributes understanding our mementos, trinkets, and offerings small toys. They are • Describe XYZ Co.’s hoping to expand their disciplines and business and someday go competencies public. They have a long • Describe how we market way to go! our organization to potential clients

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Topics and Learning Objectives

Tools Used and Exercises

Reception: Networking

• Optional people scavenger hunt to get people mingling • Guest speakers include executives from the Corporate Global offices

7 hours, 15 minutes; 2-hour reception

Wednesday Flow

Topics and Learning Objectives

Tools Used and Exercises

Where do we Organization Module: • XYZ Co. website operate? Office locations, global • Create large world organizational structure and map to depict all executive committee locations and the global reach of the Learning Objectives: organization You will be able to: • Identify the executive leadership of XYZ Co. • Explain the group structure of our organization • Identify other XYZ Co. regions and office locations (Continued)

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Flow

Topics and Learning Objectives

How do we do it?

Teamwork and • Tower Challenge Cooperation Module: Exercise Principles of • Scavenger Hunt to communication and Reception— efficient and effective teams Answering questions relating to material Learning Objectives: presented in the first You will be able to: day of orientation • Identify the key elements of teamwork • Identify your strengths and weaknesses in a team environment • Appreciate the importance of every role on the team Engagement Management: • Case Study and Framework by which XYZ Framework Activity: Co. manages our Follow-up set of engagements exercises to the DTTC case study from the Learning Objectives: previous day You will be able to: • Follow the XYZ Co. engagement management process • Describe primary engagement management roles

Tools Used and Exercises

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Tools Used and Exercises

• Employ and interpret key engagement management documents • Understand your role in engagement work Valuing Diversity and • Self-questioning Preventing Harassment exercise • Diversity incident Learning Objectives: discussions You will be able to: • Review of harassment • Identify ways to policy personally influence • Harassment incident others to value diversity discussions • See a situation from some other point of view • Identify the issues surrounding sexual harassment in the workplace • Identify opportunities to prevent harassment • Explain what to do if harassment occurs • Explain what XYZ Co. will do if harassment occurs (Continued)

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Flow

Topics and Learning Objectives

Tools Used and Exercises • Demo Campus Strategic Education: • Demo Competence Benefits overview and Manager—Self-Study explanation of SE and Guide Campus, and other support departments Learning Objectives: You will be able to: • Identify the two primary focuses of strategic education • Navigate SE campus • Articulate the power of your personal skills profile • Identify how SE supports your career development through learning events

Wrap Up

Summary Presentations

Total Time

7 hours, 30 minutes

• Team activity that summarizes the two-day orientation

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12 ‘‘Raise the Roof’’ Sales Meetings Lanie Jordan

T

O BUILD A house you need a comprehensive set of plans. You can’t begin building any type of structure, or even enter into the

process of obtaining the necessary permits for a construction project, without a detailed set of plans. Too bad business meetings don’t work that way; I for one think they should—can you imagine all we could accomplish?! Over four years ago, I transferred from my home town of Birmingham, Alabama, to Dallas, Pennsylvania, eager to assume the role of director of education and training for Benco Dental. We began building our house from nearly one thousand miles away. Distance made it difficult to evaluate and participate in the planning process. As a result, once we moved we came face-to-face with problems that came from holes in the planning process. We learned more about construction and its pitfalls than we really wanted to know. 235

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Most sales leaders struggle with juggling and managing a multitude of priorities. Meeting planning may not receive the full attention it deserves due to other more ‘‘pressing’’ responsibilities. However, leading ineffective meetings can be a big waste of time and can contribute to low employee morale—both are dangerous situations to be in. We’ve all had the unfortunate experience, at one time or another, of walking out of a meeting frustrated, angry that we took time out of the field or away from our office for THAT meeting. You are shaking your head and thinking, ‘‘What a waste of time.’’ Chances are if you felt that way, so did others in the group. How do you ensure that this doesn’t happen to you or your team? The process of creating a valuable experience for your team during critical meetings is a lot like building a house. Good meeting development, like good house construction, requires planning, budgeting, decisions, details, working with others, frequent inspections, and deadlines. Meetings are the foundation of building results that you and your teams require. This chapter is about the process of meeting planning and organizing meetings to ensure that you get the results you want. Let’s look at some tried-and-true ways for making your regional or district meetings meaningful and productive.

Stop Kidding Yourself: Take This Quick Quiz to Assess Your Meeting Leadership Skills Answer the following questions quickly and honestly. Circle the response that best describes the procedures that you follow during meeting planning. 1.

I send out an invitation prior to each meeting outlining the meeting purpose, agenda, and timelines on each topic. I include any necessary documentation and pre-work to inform the attendees of any necessary preparation prior to the meeting. Always (3)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

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Never (0)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

Once I see that someone is disengaged, I know exactly how to get him or her to participate. Always (3)

9.

Seldom (1)

I watch carefully to ensure each team member is engaged during the meeting. Always (3)

8.

Sometimes (2)

I write down any potential barriers that may keep my audience from hearing or acting on the message. I write down each barrier and the appropriate solutions to those obstacles. Always (3)

7.

Never (0)

I am open to listening to the concerns of each individual on my team. Always (3)

6.

Seldom (1)

I understand my audience and recognize potential biases that any person may hold toward me, the company, or the meeting topic. Always (3)

5.

Sometimes (2)

I always start and finish my meetings on time (even if our company’s top sales rep is running late). Always (3)

4.

237

I get ‘‘buy in’’ from influential team members prior to rolling out a difficult or controversial initiative. Always (3)

3.

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Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

I stick to the agenda and its time frames that I have previously laid out, unless we all agree we need more time on a specific topic. Always (3)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

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10. I plan and practice my presentation in front of others for feedback. If others are presenting, I have them walk through their presentations with me. Always (3)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

11. I always open with an activity, question, joke, or story that engages the audience and directly leads into our topic. Always (3)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

12. I end each meeting with a call to action, some predetermined activity that will spur results toward the meeting goals. Always (3)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

13. I follow up with my team at the next meeting, in person, or by phone individually to check on their progress toward the call to action. Always (3)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

14. I listen to my team’s successes and failures and coach and provide insight where necessary. Always (3)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

15. I follow up after each meeting to reinforce the meeting objective. Always (3)

Sometimes (2)

Seldom (1)

Never (0)

Total: Calculate your score by adding the points selected under each question. Always is worth 3 points, sometimes is worth 2 points, seldom is 1 point, and never is valued at 0 points. 11 to 20 Work on the core meeting skills. Use Exhibit 12.1, the Meeting Plan Blueprint, as a checklist and fill out this selfevaluation after every meeting. Your scores will improve as your meetings are built around purpose and results. 21 to 32 You have identified specific areas of strengths in your meeting planning. Review what areas need improvement, and focus in these areas prior to your next meeting.

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33 to 45 You lead meetings well, but don’t become complacent; look for new and creative ways to engage and involve your team.

Start with a Killer Plan This may sound like a given; however, most people simply don’t take time to plan smaller meetings. And if they do take time to plan, chances are they don’t spend enough time preparing for them. A solid plan will stop the cycle of chaos, introduce clarity in your meetings, and, most importantly, produce the results you desire. When your plan is crystal clear to you, the leader, it becomes easier to make that plan clear to your team as well. Use the meeting blueprint in Exhibit 12.1 as a way to plan your killer meetings!

Exhibit 12-1. Meeting Plan Blueprint To begin planning killer meetings, ask yourself the following questions: 1.

What is the objective of this meeting?

2.

What behavior change or impact do you want as a result of this meeting?

3.

Who will be best able to communicate the message? How will we communicate the message?

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4.

Where or what will the impact be for your team?

5.

Where or what will the impact be for your customer?

6.

How will the outcome impact the organization?

7.

What barriers exist that might hinder my team from hearing or acting on the message?

8.

How can I break through the barriers to communicate the message and impact the results?

9.

What will be the challenge or call to action? How will I hold my team accountable and follow up on the objective?

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Tip: Assess yourself and your results, continually striving to improve the process, presentation, and results of each meeting. Now let’s take a quick look at what is involved in each step on the meeting blueprint.

Step 1. The Meeting Foundation, the Real Objective Define the goal or purpose of the event; this becomes the foundation of your meeting. If there is no clear objective, please do everyone a favor—don’t hold a meeting (send an email, hold a conference call, or use a webinar). A meeting without objectives is like making a sales call with no purpose—it’s a waste of time, energy, and money and only leads to your frustration and annoyance. Everything builds up from the foundation of your ‘‘house,’’ the meeting objective. Regardless of the objective of the meeting, keep it in mind as you drill down the following steps in creating your blueprint. A meeting without objectives is like making a sales call with no purpose.

Step 2. I Love You Just the Way You Are: Now Change Behavior change is all about developing new habits. Change can take place several different ways. Your meeting goal may be training in a new skill; introducing a new tool, a new service, or product launch; or simply developing team synergy within your group. What do you want your team to do differently when they leave the meeting? Do you want them to feel or think differently? Behavior change won’t take place in one meeting. Most people will need to be reminded of what’s important or what is new. Behavior skills come from motivation, practice, and repetition.

Step 3. ‘‘I Come Bearing Good Tidings of Great Joy’’ The messenger, or the person who presents to your group, is totally dependent on your objective. You may be introducing a new product to

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your team. If so, would a customer who uses this (or a similar) product, the manufacturer, or the developer be best able to inspire your team? Would a sales rep outside your team who has had prior experience selling a similar or competitive product or was part of a pilot group that produced excellent sales results be a good resource for your team? Often these types of experts, called subject-matter experts (SMEs), can be invaluable in communicating key benefits, unique features, competitive information, and important questions to consider as you approach a customer with your solution. Look around and get creative when searching for your presenters. If not, your team just might shoot the messenger.

Step 4. It’s All in the Delivery How you communicate the message depends on your objective and your audience. Introductions of new products may be best served through demonstrating and giving individuals an opportunity to view the product in action or to have hands-on experience with the product. If you are training a new skill, look around your team or your organization for someone who has had success with this skill. If he or she is respected by your group, this can be an excellent opportunity to pull your team together and spotlight, or recognize, a team member in a unique way.

Leaders: Make sure your SMEs are good presenters and are well prepared for the meeting. Ask to review their presentations and materials in advance; I suggest they present to you and that you coach and advise where necessary. If your coaching doesn’t work or seem to stick, recognize this, and do both of you a favor: don’t allow the person to present. Keep in mind, you are not going to change someone’s presentation skills dramatically in a short amount of time.

If your company has a training department (especially if you have a training department that specializes in sales), use it! Training professionals

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are experts at presenting skills, engaging their audience, and making the message memorable. If you can’t get your training department to your meeting, call them and ask for curriculum and exercises they recommend in pulling the presentation together. Solicit their advice and feedback. Good trainers naturally want to help you succeed; that is what they do each and every day.

Step 5. Tune In to Your Team’s Favorite Radio Station WIIFM (What’s in It for Me) Determine the impact for your team by thinking of the benefits you will present during your meeting. Will this be an opportunity to partner with clients, perhaps widening and/or deepening existing relationships? Perhaps you are looking to gain new customers with a new tool or product, or you could be introducing new skills that help people sell more, and, in turn, make more money. What are the benefits and rewards to the audience? Possibly improved sales, increased money, more clients, increased customer satisfaction, deepened client relationships, a corporate reward trip, prizes, or recognition? It may be that you, or your company, want to reward individuals, or the team as a whole, with year-end rewards. This new skill or product may lead to yours being top region at your next annual sales meeting or public recognition for the entire group or individual members. This is really about the benefit to your audience. This step is crucial, especially when dealing with salespeople. Without clearly stating what’s in it for them, turning the dial to WIIFM, your audience will quickly lose focus.

Step 6. Partner with Your Client Think about the impact to your client beyond features and benefits. Ask yourself, ‘‘How can this product or service help my customer produce or sell more in their business?’’ By changing the way you view new products and/or services from being just something to sell to a real solution that is of great value to your client, your customer relationships will drastically change. Your relationships will become more entrenched.

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Step 7. Impact Your Company Impacting the organization may mean a culture shift in developing new skills with the sales force, better client or associate satisfaction, increased profits or productivity, increased or new market share. Whatever the company goals, know them, and share them with your team. Drill the goal down to the percentage or number goal that your team owns. Let’s look at an example. Say we have a corporate goal to sell twelve million wonderful widgets and your company has twelve districts, your district goal becomes one million in widget sales. You can further drill down the impact by making it specific to each team member. If you have ten team members, each team member must sell 100,000 in wacky widgets. Whatever the goal, break it down into manageable chunks, that can easily be measured and tracked.

Step 8. Identify Your Barriers Barriers that may exist may include fear of change: ‘‘We’ve never done it that way.’’ New skills may overwhelm or frighten individuals on the team. New products may take time to learn and master. Obstacles may also include your team members themselves. Is your team open to you and your message? Do they respect you as their leader? Do they trust that you support them and want them to be successful? Identify all potential barriers that may exist during the planning process.

Step 9. Break Through the Barriers! Breaking through the barriers to communicate the message is really about you, the leader, understanding your team, their unique personalities, their learning styles, and the potential issues that may naturally arise from your objective. This speaks to the clarity of your message and your preparation. As you prepare for your meeting, place yourself in your audience’s shoes, thinking of possible objections and questions. Write them all down along with your potential responses and practice your solutions to each.

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Step 10. Hear Ye, Hear Ye The call to action is a great way to close any meeting. It should match back to the behavior you want to change. A strong call to action may be to reach a specific sales goal or to call on so many clients to discuss the new product or service. It may be to challenge your team to commit to new activities such as call planning. If the call to action is to see three customers and gauge interest in the product, then have each team member commit to that goal by writing down on an index card his or her name and the three clients that he or she commits to seeing. Include target dates to meet with each client. This keeps the focus and allows each team member to manage his or her individual progress. It is important that you be clear and precise about expectations. Include a timeframe and announce how you will hold your team responsible to achieving their goals. The key to creating a powerful call to action lies in the follow-up. Let your team know you will be checking up and checking in and actually DO IT!

Step 11. Keep Score Team accountability is the true success measure of the objective. In order to get results, we must follow up. Now this is always made easier with salespeople when the awards and rewards are worth more to them than what they are being asked to do. In other words, if you ask a sales team to change a behavior but you never demonstrate what is in it for them, odds are you won’t get the results you desire. Show your team that you are committed to the goal and their success by asking for feedback and concerns. Always be prepared to assist your team in working through their concerns. You may want to spend time in the field with your reps on customer calls, providing feedback and coaching, calling your more experienced reps to check progress and obtain feedback. If a rep is overachieving the goal, find out how he or she is doing it. Then share the best practices with other team members who may be struggling.

Remember, what gets measured gets done.

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Step 12. Keep It Real Assessing yourself (the leader) and the team results after each meeting is a crucial part of making meetings effective. Participant surveys reassess how others evaluate your skills. For personal evaluation, use the survey at the beginning of this chapter. Self-assessments and participant feedback go a long way toward helping you develop your skills, focus on your strengths, and improve on weaknesses. Ask yourself, ‘‘Did I follow the Planning Blueprint? Did I get the results I desired?’’ If not, ask yourself what steps were skipped or missed to continuously improve your meetings.

The Big Day Make Meaningful Connections The day of the meeting, arrive at least one hour early. Set up all equipment, food, and the meeting room first, prior to the arrival of anyone else. Be prepared to greet each person as he or she enters the room, shake hands, make a personal connection by asking about their recent move, congratulating them on gaining a new customer, or thanking them for a recent day you spent in the field with them visiting customers. Make each comment unique to the individual. This is an important process, as it builds individual connections and demonstrates your sincere interest in each team member.

If You Feed Them, They Will Come Seriously, long meetings are tough, especially if they start early. This doesn’t have to be a catered affair; simple is fine. For example, when you have scheduled an early morning meeting, include coffee, juice, and a simple breakfast sandwich or bagel. This little detail is appreciated by your team; plus the growling stomachs detract from your message.

Stick to It Stick to the prepared agenda, starting and stopping on time. Arrange to discuss individual and personal objections or arguments outside your

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meeting time. Then be sure you do so. Don’t let negativity overtake the meeting. If a valid concern comes up or you see that more time needs to be invested in a topic than you anticipated, be flexible, but evaluate where you can make up the time. If it is important enough to spend more time on a topic, do so, but keep in mind your schedule for the meeting. Your team will thank you.

Break It Down Give breaks on a regular basis. During my training classes we teach for fifty minutes and break for ten to fifteen minutes. This allows people to return phone calls to clients, and they appreciate the brain rest. The rule: breaks become shorter if the entire team doesn’t come back on time. This creates a sense of control for the participants and helps you keep to your schedule.

Minimize TADD (Technological Attention Deficit Disorder) One of your big obstacles during the meeting may be technology such as PDAs or laptops. Make your meeting a cell-free, laptop-free zone to keep the focus. Keep in mind your team members’ individual needs; if someone has a child due home from school, pregnant spouse, ailing parent, or whatever, allow him or her to keep his or her cell phone on vibrate and close at hand.

You’re Killing Me Let’s talk about the actual presentation you will be giving to your team. Here are a few key points that will help you to avoid overwhelming your audience. • Keep your agenda to three key topics or fewer so as not to inundate the group. • Don’t ‘‘present’’ your team to death. We’ve all seen speakers turn their back and read each PowerPoint slide to the audience. Or worse yet, a presenter may read from cards or notes. When this

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happens I want to scream, ‘‘Send me an email! I’ll read it myself!’’ Nothing kills your presentation faster! • Each slide should contain no more than six bullet points with six words per line (no more) in a clear font. This is not the time to write out every word you plan to say. • Keep all graphics simple, no strange effects. While you may think showing off your PowerPoint skills is fun, I assure you it is not, at least not to your audience. • Use statistics to illustrate key points you wish to make. This brings the audience into your presentation, particularly when the statistics affect your sales team’s bottom line. I recently started a presentation with three statistics written randomly on a whiteboard with no explanation. I asked the group: ‘‘What do you think these numbers mean to your company and your customers?’’ My audience was immediately intrigued and engaged. They were shouting out their responses and guessing possible answers. Each number represented an important statistic relevant to their business and their clients. These statistics became my three key points, and each time the next topic rolled around I circled the statistic on the whiteboard, bringing it into my presentation. Look for creative methods to introduce your points and keep interest throughout your meeting. Statistics only work when kept to a minimum. Too many and the numbers won’t be remembered and they become redundant and boring in your presentation.

I’ve heard it said from many speakers, ‘‘They may not remember the message, but they always remember the jokes.’’ Jokes and humor can be an excellent way to break the ice and engage your audience. This is not, however, the time to practice your routine for the next amateur night at your local comedy club. Keep the jokes and humor to a minimum. Clean humor used sparingly can release tension, break the ice, and make your message memorable.

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Never make a joke at the expense of someone on your team. It makes the entire team uncomfortable, even when they laugh. Nothing says ‘‘Jerk’’ faster than laughing at another’s expense. Stay clear of jokes involving religion, sex, gender, and culture bashing.

Personal stories help others immediately relate to you and your topic. Stories are all around you. Frequently, I talk about my family, my job, my friends, and my life. I’ve told stories about my education, cooking classes I’ve taken, family vacations, holidays, where I grew up, anything that relates to the topic and to my audience. Many times, after I tell a story people in the audience will come up and ask me to elaborate on my experience. Recently, while giving a workshop on presentation skills, I told a story about failing at a presentation in the second grade and how it made me feel in front of my classmates. I used a punch line at the end of the narrative to ensure that everyone knew I was not scarred for life. One of the audience members immediately approached me at the end of the presentation and asked if that negative experience had made me grow and become more successful at presenting in front of others. I saw the story from a new perspective and enthusiastically agreed with him that, yes, it had. Tip: I always practice stories and jokes out loud in front of others to see how people receive the message or whether they get the joke. I never practice in front of my family; they always think I am funny— even when I am not trying to be.

I have read so many studies about adult attention span that it would make your head spin. Various studies suggest that adult attention span ranges anywhere from six minutes to ninety minutes. I don’t worry about studies so much as the results of personally conducting thousands of training classes with salespeople. That is a study all in itself! In my experience, the first ten minutes of a presentation or after a break is the most important on the speaker’s side. People actively listen for about

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that long. Then you need some sort of interactive activity, quiz, or group discussion to pull the team back into the message. You can easily do a group recap, whiteboard capture of ideas, or discuss most interesting findings from smaller group discussions.

Annual Sales Meeting Planning If arranging a local sales meeting is like building a house, then planning an annual sales meeting is like building a skyscraper. In building a skyscraper, every detail is magnified, there are more people involved in the process and the outcome, and the task is larger and more complicated. The meeting planning principles we introduced for district sales meetings are easily applied to annual meetings, but on a larger scale. With all of these details to manage, where do you as the leader focus? And what do you delegate to your meeting planning team? I’ve planned my fair share of events through the years. I’ve coordinated everything from national sales meetings to annual conferences for associations of which I am a member to charity events that are near and dear to my heart. Looking at these meetings from the sales leader perspective, however, is different. As I began working on this part of the chapter, I called Bill Brodie, vice president of global sales for Solta Medical, to share his tips on planning meetings that yield sales results. Bill leads great sales meetings with real sales impact.

BILL’S FOCUS REMAINS CENTERED I N F I VE K E Y A RE A S A S HE P L A NS H I S M EE T I NG S 1. Meeting objective—Determine the goal of the meeting. Concentrate on the behavior they want to impact as a direct result of the annual meeting. 2. Corporate culture—Bill states that this is the one live touch his company has with their sales force each year. He wants to make it

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memorable, informative, and continue driving their corporate culture to their sales force. 3. Flow and content—Bill watches the flow, speakers, and presentations of each meeting carefully. He meets with his event planners at least twice a month, sometimes more, to review the agenda as it continues to shape and develop. He asks for presentations in advance. No one speaks to Bill’s sales force without first passing through Bill. Bill then sets up a follow-up appointment to make sure the changes were made. He has politely ‘‘uninvited’’ presenters who cannot or will not make the needed changes. 4. Awards and recognition—Bill is the king of awards and recognition for his salespeople. He kicks off every annual meeting with the awards dinner; he can’t wait to celebrate his team’s success and hard work. 5. Peer-to-peer learning—Bill believes you should have plenty of space and time for your team to meet their peers, get to know one another, and connect. Great learning comes from the relationships that are built at annual meetings.

Everyone wants to feel a part of something bigger than him- or herself. We want to be proud of where we work and what we do each and every day. Corporate culture is defined in Business: The Ultimate Resource as ‘‘the combined beliefs, values, ethics, procedures, and atmosphere of an organization. The culture of an organization is often expressed as ‘the way we do things around here’ and consists of largely unspoken values, norms, and behaviors that become the natural way of doing things.’’

Simply stated, corporate culture is a key reason people work for you or buy from you. It is the intangible results people receive in being associated with your company. Your organization’s culture is the basis for why employees or customers stay with you; or why they don’t.

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If you ask your team to define your company’s corporate culture, many people will describe it as your company mission, vision, or values; however, it is so much more. Outsiders such as your clients, vendors, and competitors may have a deeper grasp of your organization’s corporate culture than your own company’s internal employees do. Be certain that your management team has a hold on what your culture is, and be prepared to define it, coach to it, and drive it consistently to your team.

UN - C AP YO UR CORPORATE C U LTU R E BY EVALUATI NG TH E F O L LO W I N G Connection—define the connection you want with employees and clients. Action—determine the action you want to inspire in the community with your associates and your clients. Purpose—describe your organization’s purpose and how it affects your workforce, your customers, and the population that your company affects.

Awards and recognition are important to your salespeople. If your company doesn’t have an annual awards trip, the annual sales meeting is your big chance to say thank you for your team’s hard work. Remember, without our great salespeople in the trenches every day, none of us would have a job to go to each morning. Bill’s Tip: Bill makes each awards dinner special by ‘‘dressing it up.’’ All presenters are in tuxes and every awards ceremony is a suit-and-tie affair. He acknowledges the importance of his sales team by respecting each of them in this unique way.

Great peer-to-peer learning can take place at your annual sales meeting. Sometimes the best lessons are learned from others who have been successful doing exactly what we do each day. Peer-to-peer learning

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takes the pressure off you as the leader, places the spotlight on your top performers, yields lifelong relationships, and creates a tight sense of community among your sales force. What a great way to ensure best practices are captured and shared for your company. True Story: I’ll never forget attending my first sales meeting. Luckily, we had a panel discussion that you could attend and bring three of your own ideas. Space was limited and, thankfully, I received one of the rare seats for the gathering. I made friends and professional acquaintances at that meeting that I still cherish to this day. That session, with so many different levels of expertise and great pearls of wisdom, helped shape my entire career. I received countless ideas on managing my schedule and marketing our company’s products and services, and plenty of new and creative ways to approach my clients. We created our own networking group, met once a year (at the annual meeting), and created peer pressure among ourselves. We developed into our own society; holding one another accountable, providing advice when necessary, and celebrating one another’s successes. The group had remarkable results. Each member of our informal session was in the top 10 percent of their district and each (every single one!) went on to win the President’s Club, year after year, with our company.

Bill’s Tip: Ensure your sales meeting includes space and breathing time for your reps. Build in fun activities and opportunities for relationships to develop among your group members. Your team will value the time and naturally learn and grow from one another.

The Top Ten Meeting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Common Mistake

Tips to Avoid Common Mistakes

10. Lack of time invested in the planning process.

10. Start with the end in mind. Visualize what behavior you want to impact. (Continued)

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The Top Ten Meeting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them (Continued) Common Mistake

Tips to Avoid Common Mistakes

9. Deviating from the agenda—not starting and stopping on time.

9. Watch your time closely, start and stop on time. If something is added or goes long, remove or shorten another topic.

8. Overwhelming your 8. Pick three key points and stick to audience with too many topics them. Utilize conference calls to or activities. discuss less important initiatives. 7. Lecturing to your audience.

7. Look for unique ways to engage your team. Discussion questions and group exercises are good ways to involve your team.

6. Lack of participation and feedback.

6. Recognize this is about your team selling more. Get them involved in the game.

5. Not making personal connections with your team as they arrive for the meeting.

5. Step away from your laptop and greet each team member as he or she arrives.

4. Lack of recognition of your team’s success.

4. At every meeting, acknowledge your team’s success or progress.

3. Poor SME presentations.

3. Have each speaker present to you first. Check back to ensure your suggestions were added to the presentation.

2. Not issuing a call to action at the end of your meeting.

2. Make the call to action specific and time-bound.

1. Lack of follow-up on your team’s progress.

1. Call to check in, watch for new activities in the field, ask about their progress at the next meeting, share best practices within your team, and provide coaching when necessary.

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Conclusion My oldest daughter is a talented songwriter; she literally hears the music and the words in her mind’s eye before she writes down or plays the first note. She begins by visualizing the beautiful music, the emotion it will invoke, and the words that will tell the story to her listeners. Successful meetings too must start with the end in mind as you visualize positive outcomes and results. Planning effective meetings can be timeconsuming, but if done well they can spur success and improvement on your team. As you know, your number one job as a sales leader is to help your team sell more. Meetings, when planned well, can help you do just that—improve sales by motivating your team members, sharing important data, and better equipping them with the tools they need. I wish you continued success, as you raise the roof on your next big event and blow the top off your annual objectives. Questions for Reflection • What should you own as the sales leader and what should you delegate to your team? • How do you rate your sales meetings? • How would your team rate your meetings? • What are some ways you can make your meetings more impactful? Exhibit 12.2 is the Annual Sales Meeting Checklist I use to ensure that our team stays on task for large events. Feel free to utilize this as a guide for your next sales meeting.

Exhibit 12-2. Annual Sales Meeting Checklist Sales Leader, Team Leader SL, TL

Timeline

Activity

TL

12 Mo. Out Determine date for meeting.

Date Completed

12 Mo. Out Define objectives, goals, and theme.

(Continued)

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Sales Leader, Team Leader

Timeline

TL

12 Mo. Out Send Out RFPs for venue selection.

SL, TL

12 Mo. Out Create budget for event.

SL, TL

12 Mo. Out Develop preliminary agenda.

SL, TL

12 Mo. Out Select planning committee and schedule subsequent planning committee meetings.

TL

12 Mo. Out Determine necessary committees and committee leaders.

TL with SL approval

11 Mo. Out Site visits to venue.

TL with SL approval

Activity

Final venue selection. Sign necessary contracts.

SL, TL

10 Mo. Out Select speakers, activities, entertainment, photographer, decorator, catering vendor, etc.

SL, TL

10 Mo. Out Refine agenda.

SL, TL

8 Mo. Out

Begin scheduling speaker presentation reviews.

TL

7 Mo. Out

Design marketing materials to fit theme.

TL

6 Mo. Out

Purchase permits, licenses, insurance.

Date Completed

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Sales Leader, Team Leader

Timeline

Activity

TL

6 Mo. Out

Open registration (I use a registration site from my favorite travel agent) to include dates of meeting, hotel, transport, air, and hotel amenities.

TL

6 Mo. Out

Set up AV requirements with vendor.

TL TL

6 Mo. Out 6 Mo. Out

Select food and beverage. Confirm speakers, activities, and entertainment.

SL, TL

6 Mo. Out

Follow up on speaker presentation reviews and finalize speaker list.

TL

6 Mo. Out

Compile AV requirements for event. Include speakers and entertainment. Secure AV agreement.

TL

6 Mo. Out

Order sales awards and create certificates. Note: This date may vary based on sales reports available and your award vendor.

TL

5 Mo. Out

Confirm hotel agreement details; prepare necessary addendums to contract.

TL

5 Mo. Out

Print materials, create signage.

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Date Completed

(Continued)

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Sales Leader, Team Leader

Timeline

Activity

TL

5 Mo. Out

Create registration packet including name badges, agenda, and welcome letter, meeting evaluations, etc.

SL, TL

4 Mo. Out

Budget review.

TL

4 Mo. Out

TL

1 Mo. Out

Conference committee meeting to finalize roles and responsibilities. Verify specifics with all vendors.

TL

1 Mo. Out

Confirm all travel arrangements for speakers, vendors, committee members, attendees, and VIPs.

TL

1 Mo. Out

Confirm all food and beverage orders with catering vendor.

TL

1 Mo. Out

Phone Pre-Con Review with Hotel including room pickup, meeting room layouts, food and beverage, in-room gifts, security information, etc.

TL

1 Mo. Out

Begin gathering necessary onsite office supplies.

Date Completed

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Sales Leader, Timeline Team Leader

Activity

TL

1 Mo. Out

Create onsite binder to include all emergency contacts, EBOs, special requests, VIP information, vendors contact information, contracts, rooming lists, transportation lists, etc.

TL

1 Mo. Out

Cut checks for all vendors.

TL

2 Weeks Out Ship all supplies to venue–include return labels to return necessary supplies from venue.

TL

2 Weeks Out Review all items have been completed on checklist.

TL

2 Weeks Out Obtain petty cash for tips and gratuities.

TL

1 Day Out

Pre-Con meeting with hotel and all vendors.

TL

1 Day Out

Pre-meeting with all onsite personnel including conference committee and volunteers.

TL

1 Day Out

Set up registration area and onsite staff office.

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Date Completed

(Continued)

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Sales Leader, Team Leader

Timeline

Activity

TL

1 Day Out

Confirm VIP attendance, gifts, in-room letters, and hotel registration packets or letters.

Date Completed

Post-Meeting TL

Present tips and gratuities to necessary hotel staff, vendors, etc.

TL

Compile meeting evaluations.

TL

Compile meeting summary.

TL

Pay remaining balances to vendors, hotel, etc.

TL SL, TL

Finalize budget. Hold meeting with sales leaders and conference committee to review event pros and cons and obtain feedback for upcoming year.

TL

Send thank you notes to speakers, hotel, staff, etc.

Reference Business: The Ultimate Resource (2nd ed.). (2006). Cambridge, MA: A&C Black Publishers, Ltd.

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13 Successfully Leading Virtual Sales Teams Renie McClay

Defining Today’s Environment Today’s managers most likely have employees in various locations in the United States. Perhaps there are global members of the team as well. For many individuals, this is a relatively new phenomenon that requires training on how to manage a team that is not located in the same place. Although this may be new to many functions and organizations, sales managers have been doing this for many years. They regularly manage people they rarely see. This chapter focuses on what it takes to build and sustain successful virtual sales teams. There are some challenges to managing a team virtually. Connecting and building trust with each individual can be a challenge. When team members are not in the same location as you are, it may take effort to create opportunities for all to get to know each other and to build 261

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situations in which trust can grow. It is also important to help team members feel a connection to the team and the larger organization. Technology offers a variety of tools and techniques to help virtual teams keep connected and build trust. ‘‘Trust takes time to build but can be dismantled in an instant. It is the most precious commodity in human relations.’’ Jerry Acuff

Building a Successful Virtual Team So where do we start? Building any successful team begins with the process of selecting the right people. If a manager does not have strong communication skills but her people work down the hall, team members can likely figure out what needs to be done. They can come to get clarification; they can discuss questions and work out differences. Managers in this situation typically know when someone is struggling. However, if individuals are working remotely, the manager does not see what they are doing on a regular basis. They aren’t close by to help with problem solving. Often it can be more difficult to get clarification because of differing time zones and the use of email correspondence. Over the years I have developed two rules for success with virtual teams: Rule number 1: Hire good people—the right people. Rule number 2: Train those good people in what they need to know and do to be successful. Truly, the first key to leading a successful virtual team is all about hiring and selection. Hiring salespeople who are goal-oriented, peoplefocused, good influencers, and good team players is very common. When working virtually, it is also important to look for those who are self-starters, good problem solvers, will ask for help when they need it, and are open to feedback. They should be independent, familiar with technology, and open to trying new things. Ideal candidates are also good, clear communicators.

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Creating the Team An important part of building a sales team is to establish trust and build relationships among the team members. This takes deliberate time and effort to establish. As the sales team leader or manager, you set the stage for fostering these relationships and building trust. Your behavior sets the tone and provides an example for the team. Be sure that you connect with each individual during occasional face-to-face meetings. Establish a schedule for team meetings and phone calls with individual reps. Email can also be used to keep in touch about less pressing issues or topics. Some tips to assist with building a cohesive team include: • Be available. Access to managers is a huge issue for salespeople. Try to be available when they need you. If you are not available, let them know when you will be, or provide an alternate way to reach you. • Demonstrate value. Show that each person is important and you value him or her. Never talk badly about another team member. • Make a plan and follow through. Good follow-through helps with developing trust, efficiency, and setting expectations. • Collaborate. Help members share their thoughts. Find reasons for the team to collaborate. Collaboration helps with getting to know each other and builds commitment to the team. • Connect to the larger group. Help each rep to connect with the larger organization. Sometimes their view of the entire company is Arizona, because that is where they are. The manager is the key to providing the larger view. • Assign a mentor. Mentors help team members to feel a connection to the organization. • Improve your skills in managing conflict. Create an environment in which people are comfortable asking questions, speaking up, and asking for what they need. • Take time out for chit chat. Prior to the start of your team meetings, take a few minutes for some ‘‘coffee talk.’’ This can be an informal discussion on any non-work-related topic that interests the team. It’s a great way for the team to get to know each other better and

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to open up to each other. Encourage participation from all team members. • Listen actively. Above all, be a good listener. Listen with all of your senses to hear and understand what they are really saying.

When the Virtual Team Meets Face-to-Face Training and meetings become important times for virtual teams. It is important to build periodic in-person meetings into the budget. Face-toface events help to build strong working relationships, connect the team to the larger mission, and assist in career development and exposure. There is a cost for face-to-face meetings, but there is also a cost for not having them. The cost for not meeting in person is often measured in turnover and disconnected, dissatisfied employees. Take full advantage of time to build rapport with individuals and foster relationships among team members. These visits can be very rejuvenating and can help pull the team together. Remember that many remote salespeople may feel like islands.

As a sales manager, I noticed when I worked with new salespeople, that they would ask when the next sales meeting would be. For people working remotely, sales meetings are the team connections. These events are often how they connect with the vision and get ideas from peers. Salespeople are generally social beings and like the human connection. Well-orchestrated and interesting meetings can be something to look forward to. (See Chapter 12 for many ideas to create effective meetings.)

Maintaining Remote Relationships Developing and maintaining relationships virtually is not as easy as walking down the hall. Making lunch dates isn’t as easy. Relationships with each team member needs thought and effort to be developed. Here is where technology should be used as your best ally. Text messaging, instant messaging, phone calls, conference calls, web conferences, email,

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and other electronic media are the tools in your kit to bridge any geographical divides. Because you are physically removed from your sales team, you are not able to see what they are doing, nor are you able to see their facial expressions or body language during conversations. Because of this, communication skills are critical. Be sure to be clear and concise. When it’s time to listen, use all of your senses. Imagine what they are feeling; picture their faces as they are speaking, and listen for tone changes in their voices. Try to pick up on these cues, since you cannot see them. One of the issues with salespeople is that it’s often hard to be visible to the organization. Help provide visibility for your team upward and across teams. In addition, recognize a job well done on your team. Learn how individuals and the team prefer to be recognized for something special. Ask them what is meaningful and then do what is impactful for them. Send gift cards to places they like, even if it’s just coffee or lunch. A handwritten note recognizing an achievement can make someone’s day. When recognizing an achievement, make it a single-purpose phone call. ‘‘Good job’’ emails will have much less impact. Stay connected to their major goals and ask about progress. Write down the company anniversary and birthday for each person and remember them in some way.

Special Challenges Managing New Hires Bringing someone new onto the team is particularly challenging in a virtual environment. How do you get to know that new employee? When I was trained as a new salesperson (this was a long time ago!), my manager worked with me for two weeks and personally introduced me to my customers. Most companies do this differently now, but in-person time can speed up the process of getting to know one another and building trust. Here are some additional tips to consider: • Listen. Be sensitive to the enormous amount of information they need to learn quickly.

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• Stress open and honest communication. Encourage their zillions of questions. Give them opportunities to speak up and give their opinions. • Have a plan. Develop their training plans before they start (see Chapter 11 for more ideas on this topic). • Lend visible support. Have a weekly check-in, at least for the first two months. Find out what is going well and where support is needed. • Communicate regularly. Do not rely on email. Use a variety of methods to stay in contact with your new team member. • Ask questions. Figure out what motivates the person. • Share your expectations. Let them know what you expect during the training period and afterwards. • Provide ‘‘guard rails.’’ Support them and help with any issues blocking their success. • Assign a peer mentor. Help them to get the job knowledge and skills they need by providing a peer they can go to for support. • Make introductions. Make a personal introduction to the team, including a photo and personal interests. Help to make connections within the team.

Managing Performance Managing performance is different when you are not face-to-face. A sales manager managing an inside sales team will do it differently than a sales manager managing a team located in six states or countries. How do you know what and how your sales reps are doing? When managing a virtual sales team, here are some tips for doing it well: • Manage conflict. Conflict can be the single most challenging thing for many people. Create a safety zone, encouraging team members to speak up. • Provide regular feedback that is both good and constructive. If possible, deliver constructive feedback in a conversation versus email. Giving feedback virtually is challenging, because both parties

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can miss nuances. Plan in advance what you are going to say and anticipate possible reactions, particularly when giving constructive feedback. Do not save feedback for yearly performance reviews. • Speak up. Let people know what you are noticing. Make it clear what you are picking up and discuss—don’t just send an email about it. • Articulate your expectations. Give feedback on the results as well as the activities that will lead to results. • Make time for connection. One-on-ones are important. Seek them out. Talk to salespeople each week. Find out what is happening and what they are working on. • Recognize and reward performance. Be sensitive to stressful times. Send random cards thanking them for their contributions. • Communicate priorities. Verify that people know the priorities and can manage their time well. • Have career discussions. If you don’t want to lose them, let them know. Discuss where they want to go with the organization. If they are dissatisfied, by the time you find that out, it is often too late to change things for the better. • Manage to results. Share the important metrics and discuss them regularly. • Ask how you can help. If you aren’t available when they need you, let them know when you will be available, or provide a back-up person or plan. • Show caring and compassion. Even if it isn’t your strong suit, find a way to show you are interested in them and their success. • Celebrate success. It should be more than an email saying ‘‘nice job.’’ • Pay attention. If underperformance is suspected, communicate clearly and often how things should be done and how they need to change. Frequently talk to customers and co-workers about how things in general are going.

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Global Considerations Okay, so what about the implications of managing global teams with people from different countries and cultures? The challenge for managers (and leaders) of multicultural teams is to build an atmosphere of camaraderie, mutual respect, effective communication, and productivity despite differing worldviews and physical environments. In essence, as a team leader or manager you must take a disparate group of people and cultures, and develop a team culture that is an amalgamation of the best of each culture and strength that the individual team members bring with them (Duarte & Snyder, 1999). Here are some considerations when working across global and cultural boundaries. • Certain cultures are sensitive to interruptions during a conversation. Let people finish their thoughts. Know that some cultures will not interrupt or ‘‘fight for the mic,’’ even if they have something important to add. Be aware of this yourself and make your team aware. • Help the team to understand the cultures of fellow team members. Showcasing cultural differences improves understanding and builds trust. • Rotate the time of meetings so everyone is inconvenienced equally. Establish ‘‘black out’’ time periods in order to have meetings at agreeable times. Keep a master holiday calendar (GlobeSmart, 2008). • If language barriers exist, allow extra time in one-on-one or group discussions. Watch jargon, sarcasm, and jokes. They will not be helpful in communicating your message (Irwin & McClay, 2008). • Do not rely on email as your only communication method. Establish a relationship using video conferencing, webcasts, or phone calls. Skype is a free way to call computer to computer, and you can use video to see your team members. • Be aware of direct versus indirect communication styles. If you are working with someone from a culture that prefers more indirect communication, start conversations gently and be sensitive when giving constructive feedback.

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• Avoid criticizing a country or culture in any way. Beware of discussions of politics or religion. • Do not assume your approach is the best approach. Stay open to ideas. A different culture may have a different approach that may be more effective. • Slow down your speech and enunciate clearly. Do not assume everything will be understood in the way you intend. Follow up to see whether your message was received as intended. • When working with a person from a different country, use a resource like When Cultures Collide by Richard Lewis or Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands by Morrison, Conaway, and Conaway. There are valuable and helpful insights there that can help you to learn about the new culture. • If you will speak to or train different cultures, try The Essential Guide to Training Global Audiences by Irwin and McClay. AN EC DOT E I was in a face-to-face meeting with all Chicago-based folks and a country manager from China, David. The VP of sales would ask David a question. He would wait a couple of beats and, when David didn’t respond, he would move on. I watched carefully and it seemed to be at the moment David was ready to respond that the conversation moved on. We have to remember: when English is not someone’s native language, the person has to hear it in English, translate it to the native language, think of an answer and then translate it to English. This takes time. We need to allow for this process to take place. Providing the questions or topics in advance and being patient can help improve this situation.

Summary So what have we learned here? Virtual teams are here to stay. The stakes for managing these teams are high. Disengaged employees can cost the company a lot in terms of lack of productivity and decreased customer satisfaction. Not being with employees in person, it may take a while

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to pick up on a dissatisfied sales rep or an unhappy customer. The loss can be significant in terms of sales quotas and profits missed, as well as in turnover costs of finding a replacement and having an open territory. And, as you know, losing an employee you don’t want to lose is significant. There is no guarantee the replacement person will be as good. The Harvard Management Update recommends six steps to improve success in managing virtual teams. These are create face time, set clear goals and expectations, make the work visible to the team, provide ongoing feedback, showcase team members’ competence, and foster cultural understanding on the team (Ross, 2006). This is a good summary of the general steps to be successful with virtual teams. So here is the big secret. To be successful at managing people virtually, you need to do the same things you do to successfully manage people located in the same office—you just must do them better. You must be a good communicator, a good listener, and a good manager. Because you can’t see what people are doing every day or see how they are feeling, you need to use other methods to get this information and establish a relationship. Technology is your friend here. Use video calls and phone calls to see and hear whether they are feeling connected or need a boost. Ask questions, engage them in dialogue, share experiences, and build a sense of team, despite the miles between you. Rock star communication skills are a must. There is no magical skill to learn tomorrow on how to be a better virtual manager. This requires sharpening up the all-around good skills of engaging people, keeping them motivated, supporting them through problem solving, and maintaining good communication. It also requires staying on top of new technology and ways to stay connected with your geographically dispersed team. Questions for Reflection • Does your manager training curriculum include how to manage virtually? • Are you hiring the right salespeople to work in a virtual environment?

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• Do managers support new salespeople or do they put them in territories and ‘‘watch to see if they are effective’’? • Are new managers supported in their roles, or are they ‘‘watched to see if they are effective’’?

References Duarte, D., & Snyder, N. (1999). Mastering Virtual Teams: Strategies, Tools, and Techniques That Succeed . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Globesmart, retrieved April 2008 from www.globesmart.com. Irwin, L., & McClay, R. (2008). The Essential Guide to Training Global Audiences. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. Ross, J. (2006). Trust Makes the Team Go’ Round. Harvard Management Update, 11 (6), 3–6. Retrieved from Business Source Complete Database.

Resources Morrison, T., Conaway, W., & Conaway, W. (1994). Kiss, Bow, and Shake Hands. Avon, MA: Adams Media. Lewis, R. (2005). When Cultures Collide (3rd ed.). New York: Nicholas Brealey.

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14 Media Mojo Using Technology as a Survival Strategy Trish Uhl

Figure 14-1. Sample Word Cloud

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T

ODAY ’S TECHNOLOGY OFFERS more opportunities for

establishing and maintaining relationships than you could have without it. It also provides opportunities for exposure in ways that the non-technical world never could. As a sales leader, you can teach your salespeople how to leverage technology to establish rapport and build relationships with their prospects and customers throughout the sales process. And you can model this approach by using the same technology while building rapport with your internal sales staff. Sales leaders are selling too! Your customers just happen to be on both sides of the fence: inside and outside of the organization. This chapter helps you understand how to leverage Web 2.0, social media technologies, and social networking techniques to level the playing field. Your customers, prospects, and clients are using these tools on each other and on you. Buyers are savvier than ever, largely due to the instantaneous availability of information and their familiarity with the tools to deliver that info. Become familiar enough with the technology so that you can identify the best ways to support your sales pipeline—from lead generation to creating repeat customers. Show ’em your media mojo!

Common Misconceptions The WorldNet Search at Princeton University defines rapport as ‘‘resonance—a relationship of mutual understanding or trust and agreement between people.’’ Establishing rapport and building relationships are critical to the sales process, yet organizations often make incorrect assumptions about them and do not include these topics in their curriculum. Technology often suffers from a similar misunderstanding. It is seen as a burden to learn, rather than as a survival strategy. Both are missed opportunities, since technology can be used to establish expertise, promote trust, and build rapport. These strategies are critical in a challenging economy where every salesperson must be effective and innovative.

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How Technology Complements Rapport Some believe that technology removes people from the sales process; however, with current technologies this could not be further from the truth. Today’s technologies are about connecting people and interconnecting their information and providing knowledge that can be used as input into your sales process. Technology enables relationships and gives you the tools to effectively build rapport with your prospects, customers, internal staff, and peers. Don’t believe me? Think of your favorite customer relationships. Can you answer personal questions about your contacts? How many children does each of your favorite customers have? Do you know what your customers’ interests and hobbies are? What are the problems they’re trying to solve? What keeps them up at night? And what do your individual customers personally need in order to be more successful? If you know, it’s because you’ve established relationships with them. You probably have met them in person, spoken on the phone, emailed, perhaps texted them. All of these methods illustrate how you currently work with your prospects and customers to establish a level of trust that maintains and grows the relationship. How do you keep track of the critical information you gather when building rapport? Chances are good it’s stored electronically somewhere—your PDA, an email contact list, or a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Technology in support of your relationships is already part of your sales toolkit. It’s simply time to broaden your horizons.

How to Expand Your Reach and Improve Your Chances for Success As Stephen M. R. Covey explains in his book, The Speed of Trust, ‘‘The difference between high- and low-trust relationships is palpable! In a high-trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing, and people will get

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your meaning. In a low-trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise, and they’ll still misinterpret you.’’ According to Covey, there are thirteen behaviors to support trust: 1. Talk straight 2. Demonstrate respect 3. Create transparency 4. Right wrongs 5. Show loyalty 6. Deliver results 7. Get better 8. Confront reality 9. Clarify expectations 10. Practice accountability 11. Listen first 12. Keep commitments 13. Extend trust What does this have to do with social media? Social media applications are naturally designed to support these behaviors and make them visible to the public. These behaviors expand your credibility; social media applications expand your visibility and reach. This is the very essence of what social networking is all about. Social media software, coupled with social networking techniques, is the combination that can turn your cold calls into warm leads; or your critics into evangelists. Regardless of whether your customers are other businesses, consumers, or your own internal staff, all customers are looking to you for expertise and a fundamental level of trust. Trust is especially important in this age of information overload, as people look to experts to guide their decision-making process. They want to avoid having to consume huge amounts of data to make a purchase decision. They crave expert advice to make their choices easy and clear-cut.

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Technology enables this process and supports it by positioning you as the expert with broad visibility. Think about it! You can establish and build relationships without always having to be there in person. Keep in touch and up-to-date by using the new technology—work smarter, not harder!

Sales, Web 2.0 Technologies, and Social Media You’ve probably heard some new terms related to technology. Okay, let’s dive right in and answer some of the questions you may have about technology and how it specifically relates to sales.

What Are Web 2.0? Sales 2.0? Enterprise 2.0? Tim O’Reilly first used the term Web 2.0 in reference to a new conference he co-organized in October 2004. According to Wikipedia, the term refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design that aims to facilitate communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications, such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. Sales 2.0 is a term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and customer relationship management (CRM) applications that aim to improve the speed, collaboration, customer engagement, and accountability of the sales process. Sales 2.0 applications utilize Internet technology, now commonly known as Web 2.0, to enable new ways of interacting, collaborating, and sharing information between sales professionals and their customers and potential customers. Additionally, the technology and concept intend to add increased analytics measurement to the sales process and seek to bring increased alignment between the sales and marketing professions, as new customer engagement technologies create shared goals for the two professions throughout the sales cycle.

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Enterprise social software, also known as Enterprise 2.0, is a term describing social software used in ‘‘enterprise’’ (business) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, which imposes structure prior to use, enterprise social software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure.

What Are Social Media? Social media are information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies that are intended to facilitate communications, influence, and interaction with peers and with public audiences, typically via the Internet and mobile communications networks. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications, and social interaction, and with the construction of words, pictures, videos, and audio. Social media can take many different forms, including: • • • • • •

Internet forums (discussion boards) Weblogs Social blogs Wikis Podcasts Pictures and video

Technologies include: • • • • • • • • •

Blogs Picture sharing Video lots (vlogs) Wall postings Email Instant messaging Music sharing Crowdsourcing Voice over IP (VoIP)

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Examples of social media applications are • • • • • • • • • • • •

Google Groups (reference, social networking) Wikipedia (reference) MySpace (social networking) Facebook (social networking) Youmeo (social network aggregation) Last.fm (personal music) YouTube (social networking and video sharing) Avatars United (social networking) Second Life (virtual reality) Flickr (photo sharing) Twitter (social networking and microblogging) Other microblogs such as Jaiku and Pownce

Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.

Is Web 2.0 About Technology? No, the focus of Web 2.0 is on relationships, not technology. Web 2.0 technology supports the establishment and ongoing maintenance of relationships by allowing people to build personal communities and networks—around common topics and shared interests—independent of geographic location.

How Can Web 2.0 Help My Salespeople Sell? As we discussed earlier in the chapter, having a social networking presence is one way that salespeople can increase credibility and visibility. Listening is another. Rob Lewis, an international sales manager, said: ‘‘Salespeople are wired to talk. The good ones listen.’’ Web 2.0 technologies provide a variety of ways for salespeople to listen and gather information. There’s a lot of information to look for when listening to prospects and clients via social media applications: • The industry my prospect works in • The company I want to sell to • People who work inside this company

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• Best way to position myself with this prospect • Key phrases, buzz words • Information about the organization such as chain of command, decision-making style, key business drivers, etc. Social media applications allow you to both participate in and listen to conversations among your customers, prospects, and competitors that you would not otherwise have access to.

Real Time Versus Any Time Generally, when people think of technology they have a tendency to think of tools that allow us to meet or communicate real time, like the phone (called synchronous). There can be real benefit— and practical applications—for asynchronous tools, as well. Email is asynchronous— you write the email, people respond at their convenience. Here are some key points comparing these types of tools: • Both liberate you from geography; asynchronous also liberates you from time. • Advantage of selective attention—receivers can skip over what’s not of interest to them and zero in on what they need. • Both are good for one-to-one or one-to-many or few-to-few (small group meetings). A relationship of many-to-many requires asynchronous tools to allow for multiple voices. The key message is, when thinking strategically about the use of social media applications, keep sight of tools that put you in touch in real time (synchronous) as well as those that keep you in touch all the time (asynchronous). Understanding and effectively using this distinction is part of the mastery of these technologies and can help facilitate different types of relationships.

What Technologies Are Available, How and When to Use Them There are so many different technologies and tools available today that it would be hard to discuss each. The table below gives a good sense of the categories of technology and the specific tools in each category, and

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highlights how each may work best for different steps in the sales process. All definitions are from Wikipedia. For purposes of the table, the sales process is broken down into the following six steps: 1. Prospecting: Looking for potential customers. 2. Qualifying: Determining if your product fits a need of the prospect. 3. Proposing: Presenting your product and pricing to the prospective customer. 4. Closing: Negotiating and agreeing with the customer on final terms of the offer. 5. Delivering: Delivering the products or services to the customer. 6. Ongoing Contact: Maintaining the relationship and servicing the customer following the sale What It Is/How It Works Email

Key Points Popular Brands [TechCrunch]

• Outlook • Lotus Notes • AOL Mail Email is any method of creating, transmitting, or storing primarily text-based human communications with digital communications systems.

Where It Fits in the Sales Process

• Yahoo Mail • Google Mail • MSN Mail (Hotmail)

Email is an extremely popular All steps of the asynchronous tool allowing people to sales process: communicate at their own pace and • Prospecting convenience. • Qualifying • Presenting Email has its own disadvantages: • Closing • Often doesn’t include the right • Delivering people (just from the nature of • Ongoing how the conversation starts, it can Contact include folks who may not have an interest or exclude those who do). • Hard to follow the discussion and/or history. • People lose track or overlook email messages. • Burden on recipient what to do with a message: delete, file it, etc.

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What It Is/How It Works

Key Points

Where It Fits in the Sales Process

• Takes up a lot of space in the inbox.

• Technology and cost investment vary based on brand chosen. Discussion Boards (Forums)

Avoid some of the disadvantages of email by moving group discussions to a forum. An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site. It is the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dial-up bulletin board system.

Popular Brands

• vBulletin • Eve • Forums provide a ‘‘sense of

• • • • •

Search Engines

A web search engine is a tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information, and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in

place’’—a centralized place to meet, to host discussions and share information. Place a group can come to discuss and do the work of the group. Provides structure to the discussions— series of messages one after another. Organized searchable history—months, years later, available to all participants. Greater control over who has access to the discussion and the environment. Disadvantages: need knowledge to set up and time to keep up-to-date.

• • • • • •

Prospecting Qualifying Presenting Closing Delivering Ongoing Contact

• • • •

Prospecting Qualifying Closing Ongoing Contact

Popular Brands

• • • • • • • •

Bing Google Yahoo MSN AOL A user can search ad hoc for industry or company information. Google and Yahoo now have ‘‘alerts’’ that email you updates on the topic of your choice. Google contains applications to monitor your website and to search for industry trends.

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What It Is/How It Works newsbooks, databases, or open directories. Unlike web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input. Blog

Micro-Blogging

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Key Points

Where It Fits in the Sales Process

Popular Brands

• • • A blog (a shortened form of • the term weblog) is a website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

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• •

Blogger Typepad WordPress Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Technology costs are low since these applications run on existing computers. Disadvantages: need knowledge to set up and time to keep up-to-date.

• • • • •

Prospecting Presenting Closing Delivering Ongoing Contact

• • • • •

Prospecting Presenting Closing Delivering Ongoing Contact

Popular Brands

• Twitter (seven million visitors) [Seeking Alpha] Micro-blogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates (say 140 characters or fewer) or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio, or the web.

• The content of a micro-blog

•

• •

differs from a traditional blog in that it is typically more topical, smaller in aggregate file size (text, audio, or video). People utilize it for both business and individual reasons. Many micro-blogs provide this short commentary on a person-to-person level, or share news about a company’s products and services. Technology costs are low since these applications run on existing computers. There are lots of free applications that allow you to participate in and monitor conversations.

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What It Is/How It Works Social Networks

A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, sexual relationships, kinship, dislike, conflict, or trade. Contact Networks

A contact network is a minimal social network in which people are not assumed to have any relationship other than to be able to contact each other—perhaps only to refer items of mutual interest in politics or business, that imply no longstanding collaboration or relationship or trust with each other.

Key Points

Where It Fits in the Sales Process

Popular Brands

• • • •

Facebook (222 million visitors) MySpace (125 million visitors) Requires setting up a profile. Technology costs are low since these applications run on existing computers.

• Prospecting • Qualifying • Ongoing Contact

Popular Brands

• LinkedIn • Plaxo • Study of contact networks is

• •

central to advertising and marketing and political marketing and public relations in particular, since spreads of rumor and hearsay are thought to follow contact networks closely. A phone tree or buddy list, for instance, especially when combined with technologies such as SMS and flash mobs, are well-known ways to spread requests, rumors, or news. Requires setting up a profile. Technology costs are low since these applications run on existing computers.

• Prospecting • Qualifying • Ongoing Contact

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What It Is/How It Works Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via devices connected over a network such as the Internet.

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Key Points

Text messaging, or texting, is the common term for the sending of ‘‘short’’ (originally 160 characters or fewer, including spaces) text messages from mobile phones using the short message service (SMS). It is available on most digital mobile phones and some personal digital assistants (PDAs) with on-board wireless telecommunications. The individual messages that are sent are called text messages or, more colloquially, texts or SMS.

Where It Fits in the Sales Process

Popular Brands

• • • • • • •

•

Text Messaging

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AOL IM (AIM) Yahoo IM MSN Messenger ICQ Short text messages enable quick back-and-forth information. User settings can let contacts know a person’s status: online, available, out, etc. Does not require large investment in technology—generally the hardware is in place. Software costs are low (or free). You should only use this with customers with whom you have a relationship. People generally do not like to be contacted by someone they do not know over IM.

• Delivering • Ongoing Contact

Popular Brands

• All mobile phone carriers • Short text messages enable •

•

• Delivering

quick back and forth information. Does not require large investment in technology (wireless devices and telecommunications services). You should only use this with customers with whom you have a relationship. People generally do not like to be contacted by someone they do not know through text messaging, and—in some cases—they are charged for the message.

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What It Is/How It Works Webcasting

A webcast is a media file distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, webcasting is ‘‘broadcasting’’ over the Internet. The generally accepted use of the term webcast is the ‘‘transmission of linear audio or video content over the Internet.’’ Videocasting

Video podcast (sometimes shortened to vidcast or vodcast) is a term used for the online delivery of video on-demand and video clip content via Atom or RSS feeds. Much like podcasts, videocasts are subscriptionbased and often have a fan following.

Key Points

Where It Fits in the Sales Process

Popular Brands

• LiveMeeting • GoToWebinar • GoToMeeting • WebEx • Prospecting • Webcast uses streaming • Presenting media technology to • Closing take a single content • Delivering source and distribute it • Ongoing to many simultaneous Contact

listeners/viewers.

• May require an investment in technology (existing telecommunications services may need to be broadened to accommodate video software, which carries costs).

Popular Brands

• • • • • •

Skype Video Conferencing Apple iLife Avid Vlog It! Contains video so that images can be shared. May require an investment in technology (existing telecommunications services may need to be broadened to accommodate video software, which carries costs).

All steps of the sales process

• • • • • •

Prospecting Qualifying Presenting Closing Delivering Ongoing Contact

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Applying the Tools to Your Sales Process Use these available technologies throughout the sales process to be effective and set yourself and your team apart from the competition. Using the technology well and to your advantage is critical to being successful. Michael Rockelmann, marketing and finance training manager at a large pharmaceutical company, provides this advice: ‘‘There are two critical aspects to technology adoption—and social media applications are no exception. Your sales force must understand how these tools can be put to immediate practical application, and you must show them how they build on their past experiences and what they already know. One way to do that is to tie the tools and techniques to each step in the sales process.’’ In the following section, we will review how to use these technologies during each phase of the sales process. Note: We will not cover email in this section, as it should be used throughout the sales process and is a mainstream technology. That being said, do not become passive in using email. Leverage advanced features to make contact and stay in contact. For example, set up emails to be sent on specific dates or set up reminders to send an email to remain in contact. Do not overlook the importance of using email to keep your name in the minds of current and potential customers.

Prospecting Prospecting is where you begin to identify potential customers for your product or service. Technologies that support prospecting are ones that connect you with potential customers and provide you with insights into what your prospects and customers are thinking about. Tools that can help you find answers to these questions and help support the prospecting effort include: • Discussion Boards (Forums). Discussion boards can be both an active and passive way to find potential customers. As a passive means, you can manage a discussion board and find prospects when they post messages that relate to your product or service. As an active means, you can find discussion boards that your clients

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and prospects are part of and gather information about them and about the industry. Look for common problems or questions that these clients are facing. When you make your first contact, you will have a leg up because you have some information to build on. • Web Search Engines. Search engines allow you to conduct company and industry searches for potential clients. You can find news or related information that can lead you to a customer. They also allow you to conduct preliminary research on customers, their industries, or typical issues so you can be prepared with information when making first contact. They can give your sales force the ability to proactively address a customer or prospect’s needs, and address how your products and services can help them. In addition, Google and Yahoo now have alerts, which automatically send you the latest relevant search results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. • Blogs and Micro-Blogs. As with discussion boards, blogs can be a passive and active way to find new customers. You can host your own blog in which you publish your thoughts on a topic or your product or service. As potential customers are searching the web, they can read your blogs and contact you for more information. You can also search blogs related to your product or service and look for potential clients. • Social and Contact Networks. Networks such as LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace are tools that can lead you to potential customers. As with other technology, these can be used in a passive or active manner. You can post your profile and information on your business, and clients can contact you. You can also become part of certain groups based on your interests and affiliations. This is a good way to ‘‘meet’’ people and be referred to others based on your profile/interests. Some specific advantages of the different systems include: • LinkedIn allows you to ask current clients for recommendations, in which they post positive comments about their

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business with you. LinkedIn can be a great source of referrals also. The best prospect you can find is one for which a current customer passes on your name. You can also search for customers who are linked to you and a current customer and then ask for a referral. This gets your foot in the door. • Twitter can be used to send and read other users’ updates (known as tweets). Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Twitter is not for mass marketing. It should be used in the way that you would write and correspond with friends. Add value by sharing ideas, linking to blogs, or other valuable sites. • Facebook has the same advantages as Twitter, but you can also create a business profile to promote your product or service. This profile is separate from your personal profile, so you can avoid potential customers viewing personal information. • Webcasting and Videocasting. You can reach potential customers by being active in putting your message on the web. This can be a live event with a webcast or a recorded event with a videocast. These can both be effective, as you can provide your solutions to typical problems faced by your clients or review whitepaper information on solutions you have provided to previous customers. Potential clients view your live or recorded session and, if it aligns with the issue they are facing, they can contact you.

Qualifying Qualifying is the second step in the process, in which you meet with a potential customer and discover the issues he or she is facing and determine whether your product or service can solve the problem. In this stage, the most important aspects include being prepared with quality information on the client, the industry, and the problems faced. In addition, it is important to have meaningful meetings to determine

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whether there is a match between the potential client’s need and your product and to learn more about the decision-making process. • Discussion Boards (Forums). You can search discussion boards for information on clients, their industries, or the issues they are facing. You may find that your prospect has posted to a discussion board about an issue. This can give you an advantage by knowing a little about the client and his or her need to prepare. • Search Engines. You can find information on the potential client, industry, and issue by searching the web for information. In addition, using alerts can provide you with the most up-to-date information before your meeting. • Social and Contact Networks. The best way to build rapport with a potential client is to have common contacts. You can search your social and contact networks to see whether you have anybody in common. You can ask for this person to put in a good word before the meeting, or utilize your common contacts in building rapport during your initial meetings. • Webcasting. During the qualifying stage, the quality of your meetings can determine whether the sales process will continue. If you cannot meet in person, a webcast provides more options for interaction than a simple phone call. With a webcast, you can share a presentation about your company and product or service. You can also allow the prospect to share the screen to learn more about his or her company and needs. Do not just stop with simple presentation sharing. Show your expertise and interest by using additional tools to make the session more interactive. Webcast software allows participants to draw on the screen, highlight information, and make other actions. These tools can be used to gain additional insight into the specifics of client organizations, their needs, the decision-making process, and many other areas.

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Presenting and Closing Here you typically provide information on how your product or service can meet the prospect’s needs and explain your pricing. When presenting your solution, be prepared with information about customers, their industry, their needs, and your competition. Your goal is to show how your solution is the best option to meet their needs. This is driven by accurate information. Be aware that the client most likely has the same information as you do and has probably reviewed it. Be proactive by making information available on your website or by being active on other sites. In the Closing stage of the sales process, you will negotiate the solution and determine a price to close the deal. Information is key to your success. You need to collect information as well as provide information. You can influence the client with information you collect, or point him or her to related information already available. • Discussion Boards (Forums), Blogs, Micro Blogs, and Videocasts. All of these methods can be used to search for information, or to provide information to potential clients. You can show your expertise and the benefits of your product by being active on discussion boards, blogs, and micro blogs. In addition, if you maintain any of these, or post videocasts to the web, you can provide the link to a potential client before your meeting. The client will see you and your product before you even meet. If you are closing a deal, you can also use these tools to collect or provide information that can influence the potential client. As a caution, be aware of what you have posted. Ensure it is up-to-date and accurate. You don’t want to present different information than what you have available on the Internet. • Search Engines. As with prospecting and qualifying, search engines allow you to do your homework. You can search for information on the client, his or her industry and needs, and your competitors. Gathering information and anticipating questions can make you ready to impress clients or help you in negotiation. Again, use

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alerts to have the most up-to-date information on these topics delivered right to your email. Imagine if you receive a message on your phone while in transit to a meeting that your client company has just made a significant announcement. You can make a positive impression by sharing your knowledge when you meet. • Webcasts. As for Qualifying, webcasts allow you to present your solution to the client, even if you cannot be onsite. You can conduct the meeting via webcast and allow for an interactive session. You can have interactive follow-up meetings during the Negotiating and Closing phases to review your solution and pricing or adjust the scope of the bid.

Delivering Here you are servicing the clients and ensuring the solution is implemented and adequately meets their needs. Frequent communications are essential during this phase. The technologies available today make this easier than ever. The salesperson who uses these well has the best advantage for ensuring success. A successful delivery is essential to having a delighted client and leads the way for future sales and referrals. This is a prime opportunity to build a strong relationship and become a trusted advisor. • Discussion Boards (Forums). Discussion boards can be used to help clients with the implementation of your solution. You can maintain a discussion board that allows customers to post questions and have discussions with your staff. • Blogs, Micro Blogs, and Videocasts. If you maintain a blog, use micro blogs, or post videocasts, you can provide information to customers on implementing and best using your product or service. You can send the link to customers or sign them up for your blog. This can provide additional information to the client or to multiple clients at one time. • Instant or Text Messaging. Being available on an instant messenger or using text messaging can keep you in constant contact with your clients while they are implementing your product or service.

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These methods have the advantage of being instantaneous and allow you to react immediately to customers. Your availability and ability to provide attention to the customers can make the difference between having a potential liability and creating a long-time customer and advocate. • Webcasts. As with the other stages, webcasts allow you to be in contact with your clients during implementation, even if you cannot be onsite. You can conduct meetings via webcast and save time and money from not being onsite, but still provide the face time needed to build strong relationships and service customers.

Ongoing Contact After you successfully deliver, it is important to continue building your customer relationships. Relationships are the key to being a successful salesperson and keeping your name in front of your customers. Past clients are the easiest place to gain future sales and to find new customers. Fortunately, the technology available today allows for salespeople to stay in touch more effectively than ever before. Email can be effective, but there are now many other ways to stay active in the minds of customers. • Discussion Boards (Forums), Blogs, Micro Blogs, and Videocasts. Being active in posting or simply reviewing these technologies allows you to keep up on trends and the needs of current customers. You may see a post or a topic of interest and send the link to a customer to make productive contact. You can really set yourself apart by maintaining these technologies yourself and reaching all your customers by having customers signed up for your site. By maintaining a discussion board or blog, or posting to a micro blog or a videocast, you are actively communicating information about your product and showing your expertise. In addition, you are providing opportunities for your customers to reach you. • Search Engines. You can keep up with your clients, their industry, and their needs by searching for current and relevant information that will give you the opportunity to reach out and make contact.

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By using alerts, you can always be aware of the latest information or what is happening in an industry and react quickly. • Social and Contact Networks. Social and contact networks make it easy to stay in touch by having your name in front of your customers. In addition, these systems provide immediate notification of any postings or profile changes in your customers’ social networks. Imagine receiving an email when your customer changes his or her position title or posts a big organizational announcement. You now have a reason to reach out and make contact. You also receive notification when your customer adds a new contact. You can passively receive new prospects by just being part of a network. Social networks also allow you to have access to personal information and changes in people’s personal lives. This provides you with various opportunities to make contact and build stronger relationships. As with other means, be aware when having customers as contacts on a social network. If they are connected to a personal rather than business profile, they have access to everything you post about your personal life. • Webcasting. Webcasting provides opportunities to stay in touch with individual customers or to reach many customers at once in a more effective way than through a phone call or email. You can have a live and interactive meeting via webcast to keep up-to-date or to show a new product or service. You can also reach all of your customers at once by having a webcast and inviting everyone to see a new product presentation. A visual presentation and opportunity to ask questions can be more effective and impactful than a phone call.

Success Stories There are many sales success stories out there using Web 2.0 tools. For example, the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, launched the ‘‘Roommate Style Match’’ group on Facebook in hope of grabbing a larger chunk of back-to-school shopping dollars. Facebook users who

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join the Wal-Mart group are able to take a quiz to determine their decorating styles and then receive a list of ‘‘recommended products’’ they can buy at Wal-Mart to mesh their style with their roommates.’ Students can also download a shopping list of dorm room items sold at Wal-Mart, link to Wal-Mart’s website promoting ‘‘earth-friendly’’ products, or click on Soundcheck, where Wal-Mart’s website shows musical performances by popular singers. ‘‘We realize that this is an audience that we need to be talking to, and that this is a channel we need to be on,’’ said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk of the retailer’s decision to try to reach out to college students through a social networking site. Talk about media mojo!

Pitfalls Although there are incredible advantages to leveraging these new tools to improve your sales process, there are also a number of things to be aware of. ReadWriteWeb.com is a popular blog that provides web technology news, reviews, and analysis about web applications, web technology trends, social networking, and social media. It cautions users that, while it’s exciting to live in an ever-connected and always ‘‘on’’ world, the flip side is that information is becoming increasingly interlinked. It is relatively simple to follow footprints on the web to track both people and brands. The following tips provide some ways to avoid pitfalls with social networking tools: • Be aware that saying something in passing on a social site may come back to haunt you. • There is no delete button or undo function. • Craig Whitney, who is responsible for overseeing journalistic standards, points out that those social sites ‘‘can be remarkably useful reporting tools,’’ but is quick to warn reporters to take care when using them. ‘‘Anything you post online can and might be publicly disseminated, and can be twisted to be used against you by those who wish you or The Times ill.’’ The reality is that information on the web is intricately intertwined.

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• Getting caught with your pants down. There have been many instances when people and corporations have been caught in a difficult or embarrassing position by content they upload to the web. Whether the content is an image, a 140-character tweet, or a blog post, take time to reflect on the content you are uploading and the possible implications. The barometer used to be thinking about whatever you don’t want to see posted as a headline to The New York Times —now it’s considering whatever you don’t want to see posted to YouTube. Reality check. Not with intent to throw you off your game (now that we’ve built up all that mojo), but it’s time for a reality check. If you are unaware of the ramification of these technologies, bad things can happen. The first defamation suit has been filed due to a series of Twitter ‘‘tweets.’’ This is no surprise, as Facebook and Craigslist posts have already led to libel accusations. As the Independent article quotes Andrew Johnson and Ian Griggs, ‘‘Fans of Twitter say its beauty is that it allows users to upload their thoughts as and when they think of them. This can be a serious disadvantage for those of a belligerent disposition.’’ The details of the case are irrelevant (it’s a celebrity-on-celebrity situation), but it does illustrate how these times, well, they’re a changin’. And, as we all seem to innately know, bad news travels twice as fast as good. Bottom line: Use of these technologies requires awareness, discipline, and a clear understanding of one’s ‘‘traces’’ in a traceable—and permanent record—world.

When to Use What for Developing Your Sales Force The same tools we’ve been discussing for increasing your sales effort can also be used internally to help you work with and develop your sales force. In addition to the common tools of phone and instant messaging, video conferences and web conferences can be used. The following table outlines the tools and positions the advantages and disadvantages of each.

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Technology

Advantages

Disadvantages

Instant Messaging

• Great for quick exchanges between co-workers • ‘‘Buddy List’’ shows who’s available • Feels less intrusive than the telephone • Quicker than email—also is a real-time dialogue/ conversation, not a monologue in email

Inefficient for long conversations, as typing is slower than talking

Teleconference (Phone Conversation)

• Conveys social cues, • Not always easy to emotions, etc., much tell who’s better than text does participating in the (email, text, IM) phone conference, or who is speaking • Missing visual cues, so it’s hard to ensure everyone has a turn to talk

Video Conferencing • Allows for visual cues, • along with social and emotional cues • Can see who is present for the meeting and can see who is • speaking •

Many times seeing people’s faces is not as important and sharing visual data, e.g., slides and spreadsheets Can be expensive If out of the price range, poor quality is not substitute • Technical hassle (Continued)

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Technology Web Conferencing

Advantages

• Seen as an extension/ enhancement of an Cool tools for small audio/phone/voice shops. Check out conference Skype Video Calling • It’s an extension of voice with web-based for free visuals videoconferencing • Mind mapping, (www.skype.com/ PowerPoint, allfeatures/videocall/). document All you need is a creation/collaboration, desktop application high-speed Internet sharing, web tours, connection, a whiteboarding webcam, and a free (whiteboard sales Skype account. techniques), polling, surveys, visual Q&A, can do text chat, can also host voice online via VoIP • Collaborative work and conferencing. Most software is designed to focus on/support one or the other • Small group meetings

Disadvantages

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Advantages • Often requires download of software (because any participant can ‘‘take the floor’’ and present, so the software prepares them to do just that • Often has more complex interface • File uploads/ downloads facilitate sharing/collaboration • Large group meetings • More passive presentation style, so the attendees do not have the complexity of the controls inherent to small group meeting software • More media streaming—it’s more a push technology • More people = higher capacity = more $$ • Record presentation for delivery/playback later

Disadvantages

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Using Technology for Developing Your Sales Force Here are some specific ideas for using technology to develop your sales force. Opportunity

Suggested Technology and Uses

On-the-Spot Coaching

Text Messaging • Help onboard new hires • Assist seasoned salespeople in connecting with each other

Build Expert Communities

Wiki • Bring experts and newbies together to share tacit knowledge • Leverage reward and recognition program by rewarding salespeople for sharing information and best practices and recognizing them publicly on the Wiki

Disseminate Information

Podcasting • Use podcasts for rewards and recognition, share best practices/new sales techniques, capture sales leader content • Easily distributed to a sales force on the go—audio files can be listened to just about anywhere

Share Best and Bad Practices

YouTube/Google Video • Training—create short YouTube videos. Use static images with a recording of a real sales call and illustrate best and bad practices

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ETI QU ETTE

• Update your status indicators appropriately. ‘‘In a meeting’’ or ‘‘Available’’ are much better indicators of your availability than ‘‘Online.’’

• It is appropriate to ignore IM so long as all parties understand that convention. It is advisable to ask someone whether he or she has time to chat and to suggest how long the interchange may take: ‘‘Hi. Do you have a few minutes for a question?’’

• Avoid ‘‘talking over’’ others in IM. It can lead to confusion and impart a sense of impoliteness. But it isn’t always the case that one IM ‘‘stroke’’ from one person should always be countered by a ‘‘stroke’’ from the other in a lockstep fashion.

• Expect multitasking delays. People are multitasking more and more, especially those who IM a lot. Expect it, and don’t be upset when pauses are of uneven length. Sometimes it seems more like communication by postcard.

• Don’t hide behind IM. Many people find it easier to deal with painful subjects by IM rather than face-to-face. This behavior should be discouraged, especially with negative feedback. Negative feedback should be delivered in person or over the phone, but never by IM or email.

• Be even handed with IM shorthand. Don’t go crazy with abbreviations, unless it’s something common that people know/are familiar with. Same thing—don’t go nuts with emoticons. Abbreviations can be confusing to the non-initiate, but are a time-saver when obvious.

• Courtesy. Ask before sending large files. Turn off all the IM noises when working in an open office or attending a meeting. If you keep IM open in a meeting due to urgent or critical situations, keep your responses to a minimum so as not to distract others or appear rude.

• Security and Privacy. Let people IMing with you know if you are in a public place. It is appropriate to keep IM open in a meeting so that

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people can reach you for urgent or critical issues without interrupting the meeting. Close or minimize IM windows when not at your desk. Better yet, lock your computer.

Candidates for Electronic Meetings In addition to coaching and developing your individual salespeople, electronic meetings and other Web 2.0 tools can be used effectively and efficiently. Reduced travel costs and time out of the office associated with live meetings are some of the benefits of using electronic meetings. Other benefits include having all meeting materials in one location (for both the meeting and for historical purposes) and the ability to keep meeting workspaces private and secure. Consider the following list of types of meetings that are good candidates to be conducted electronically: • New product/service demonstrations to sales force/salespeople • Sales meetings to rally your staff and prepare them to sell— balance between planned productivity and comfortable flow—make it useful, interesting, positive • Sales presentations • Product demonstrations • Bring together groups of geographically dispersed salespeople • Increase brand awareness • Invite colleagues to the online meeting to provide additional product support • Product updates • Overview of ongoing and specific marketing efforts/programs • Share latest, greatest sales techniques • Annual sales kickoff meeting

Summary We live (and work) in some exciting technology times! Understanding the tools available and leveraging them can not only level the playing field, but increase your sales effectiveness! It’s time to get into the

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technology game and use the same tools your clients and competitors are using. The sales process does not change, but the way relationships are established and maintained, how rapport is built, information is gathered, and products are compared are different—and it’s all faster and easier than ever before. It takes a bit of time to weed through the jargon and get up to speed, but once you do, your competition will be eating your dust! Try some of the suggestions that follow to cut your teeth as your organization’s strongest Media Mojo master! What Can I Do Next? Suggested Activities/Exercises to Apply What You’ve Learned • Host your first virtual sales team meeting on the topic of the latest, greatest sales techniques leveraging technology. Keep it simple, short, to the point. It’s good practice with timely material—and you’re modeling the tools and techniques. Don’t be afraid to try your first one with a small group, or with an experienced co-host. • Set the tone and expectation from the start—host your first online meeting with your salespeople discussing the latest sales psychology studies, the human nature of group decision making, or sales neurolinguistics (the study of how the customer’s mind uses and interprets language). Keep the meeting short and to the point. The subject matter is interesting and engaging— and not what they would expect from a meeting (virtual or otherwise). It sets a precedence that the meetings you call—especially the online ones—are worth their time, energy, effort, and focus. • Host a session with a series of panelists sharing their sales success stories. Have the panelists share an overview of their victories—so others can learn where, why, and how their colleagues won the deals. Have the session moderated to keep the flow going. It will reinforce the use of technology and give your salespeople public identification as role models among their peers—it’s the type of attention salespeople crave.

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Questions for Reflection • How can you leverage technology to decrease travel time and costs? • How can you leverage technology to tend to the care and feeding of your sales team’s mental health—especially during challenging economic times? • How can you leverage technology to showcase your salespeople’s success stories and share best practices? So they can support, motivate, inspire each other with practical advice that marries creativity with common purpose? • How can you leverage technology so executive leadership can deliver their state of the union presentations, laying out future strategy in calm, cool, realistic terms?

References The Independent Media. www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/ loves-online-spat-sparks-first-twitter-libel-suit-1656621.html, Andrew Johnson and Ian Griggs. Nicole Maestri. August 8, 2007. Wal-Mart using Facebook to win backto-school sales. Reuters. www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/ idUSN0843464220070809. Princeton Worldnet Search 3.0. http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/ webwn?o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&s= resonance. Seeking Alpha. http://seekingalpha.com/article/127580-twitter-postsmeteoric-1-384-yoy-growth. Social Media Academy. www.socialmedia-academy.com/html/methodologies.cfm. TechCrunch. www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/22/facebook-now-nearlytwice-the-size-of-myspace-worldwide/ Wikipedia. www.wikipedia.com.

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ABOUT THE EDITOR

R

ENIE MCCLAY is passionate about developing people. She spent twenty years with Kraft in sales, sales management, and sales

training. She went on to manage training for Novartis and Pactiv (makers of Hefty). She is the author of Ten Steps to Successful Teams (ASTD Press). Her company, Inspired Learning LLC, trains team leaders as well as team members to improve effectiveness. Her specialty area is sharpening soft skills, which are often the hard skills! Renie facilitates training sessions in North America and globally and speaks to college and university audiences regularly. She facilitates both in a classroom and via webcast. She frequently helps organizations break existing curriculum into modules suitable for training virtually and for global audiences. She is the co-author of The Essential Guide to Training Global Audiences (Pfeiffer), a resource designed to help presenters and trainers facilitate in a new country for the first time. 305

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About the Editor

Renie is the past president of the Professional Society for Sales and Marketing Training: Center for Sales Excellence (www.smt.org). She is the director for the Sales Learning Forum for the Chicago Chapter of the American Society for Training and Development. Renie is published regularly in CCASTD’s magazine, Training Today, and the MST: Center for Sales Excellence newsletter. Renie has graduated from Second City Improvisation (under teachers Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell) and uses improvisation as a tool to help companies develop more productive and innovative teams. She helps organizations that want to be more creative and to put innovation into practice. She is certified in Accelerated Innovation, through Solution People. She has a B.S. degree in marketing and a master’s degree in global talent development. She can be reached at [email protected]

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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Susanne Conrad has been the director of Organizational Effectiveness and Development with Dechert-Hampe & Company since 1999. She works with organizations to develop and implement business strategies to enhance their organizations’ performance. Susanne works in partnership with her clients to produce and sustain measurable results to support corporate goals by aligning the corporate structure and work processes with culture and employee motivation. Her practice focuses on organizational learning and development, structured change management, and high-performance teams. For more than twenty years, Susanne has worked in consulting and management for manufacturing and service industries as well as industry associations, gaining an understanding of the issues and challenges faced daily by these organizations. She has worked with companies such as ConAgra, Masterfoods, Kraft, Gillette, Sprint, Bayer, Pfizer/Schick, and Time Distribution Services in areas such as training and development, customer development, customer relationship management, 307

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organizational restructures, process and workflow re-engineering, and cultural realignments. She has also worked with associations such as the National Confectioners Association and the Grocery Manufacturers Association to develop strategic plans and implement industry initiatives. Susanne is a keynote speaker, offers seminars and workshops on topics related to change management, team building and skills development, has been published in several industry publications, and is co-author of the book Sales Training Solutions. She can be contacted by email at [email protected] or at www.dechert-hampe.com. Maria Edelson is currently the vice president of sales at Evenflo Company. Prior to her current role, Maria spent thirty-five years with Procter & Gamble, most recently as a director for major accounts, responsible for approximately $550,000,000 in P&G sales. In addition, she spent six years as the director, Sales Capability Development, responsible for strategy development and direction setting of P&G’s Capability Program for more than two thousand sales managers in North America. She managed an organization of sixteen people who were responsible for developing curriculum and content. In addition to her role as a sales leader, Maria has a long-standing track record of passionately supporting women, both in the workplace and in the community. She is on the national board of directors of the Network of Executive Women and she is on the board of directors at the YWCA in White Plains, New York. She is a graduate of St. Lawrence University with a B.S. in chemistry. She has been married for more than thirty years and has three wonderful children. Maria is an active member of the learning community. She is on the board of directors of The Society of Sales and Marketing Trainers. She is a widely sought-after speaker. She was a speaker at the SAMA Pan American conference in Paris in 2008 and a speaker at the SAMA North American conference in May 2008. In addition, she is one of only fifty women profiled in a groundbreaking book entitled NEW Women

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Rules by Fawn Germer. The book highlights the stories and successes of fifty women trailblazing leaders in various industries. Jim Graham is the vice president of continuing education and training at the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), a non-profit organization located in Chicago. He has P&L responsibilities for publications, distance education, meetings and exhibits, and a virtual lab. Throughout his career, Jim has been in sales and sales leadership positions, and has trained thousands of salespeople in several industries. He has designed and delivered leadership programs for hundreds of sales managers and sales executives. Formerly, Jim was the vice president of training and development at RR Donnelley. He had global development responsibilities for 65,000 employees worldwide and worked with his team to provide exceptional value in sales, manufacturing, customer service, technical, and leadership training. He started in sales in the pharmaceuticals industry with ICI America, now Astra-Zeneca, as a sales rep, corporate sales trainer, district sales manager, and finally regional training manager, with responsibility for sales representatives and sales managers in ten states. Jim worked with Huthwaite Inc., as a consultant, business development manager, and finally director of channel sales distribution. He worked with Neil Rackham (selling skills guru and originator of Spin Selling) and other thought leaders at Huthwaite. At the Moore Corporation, Jim was the director of sales training, management development, customer service, and manufacturing training. When Moore acquired Wallace Computer Services, he was named a vice president and given all training responsibility in the newly combined Moore/Wallace organization. Jim has presented at the Executive Learning Leaders Institute, CLO symposiums, and other CLO conferences. He is a long-time member and a past board member for SMT. He has presented Best Practice Academies for the Professional Society for Sales and Marketing Training.

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Teresa Hiatt is the current director of sales education at Ricoh Americas Corporation. In her nine years at Ricoh, she has worked with Ricoh teams in Europe, Canada, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific for the purposes of conducting research into sales training, setting global sales strategies, and delivering sales training programs. Ricoh is now the leading provider of digital technology solutions in the office productivity market. Teresa is a member of the board of directors for the Professional Society of Sales and Marketing Training. She has also served on the judges board of the American Society for Training and Development, where sales training programs from around the world are examined to help determine winners of the ASTD BEST awards. Teresa has served on industry panel discussions at national conferences with Gartner and CompTIA. She has delivered breakout sessions on sales training at the InfoTrends Office Document Technology Forum, Center for Sales Excellence (SMT) conferences, and Channel Partner conferences. She has published various articles in Office Technology magazine on sales training. As a Six Sigma Black Belt, she has conducted process improvement projects on training effectiveness and has had return on investment projects certified by the ROI Institute for Training. Lanie Jordan is passionate about developing people and solving problems. With knowledge and insight, Lanie offers a comprehensive approach to understanding and implementing new talent, sales tools, technology, and training that create real results. She brings to the table over twenty years of sales, management, and training expertise. Lanie is no stranger to the issues that face businesses. She offers a comprehensive approach to understanding and implementing coaching, sales tools, and training that deliver outstanding results. As director of training, education, and sales support for Benco Dental, she and her team increased sales over 12 percent and reduced turnover to almost zero. Lanie has spoken to numerous universities and study clubs across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Sweden. Lanie

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is an active member of the Sales Management Association, American Management Association, and The Center for Sales Excellence and an experienced speaker for the AAO, CCASTD, and SMT organizations. Lanie knows how to get your sales team selling and producing more than ever before. Susan Onaitis has been helping corporate sales professionals enhance their skills and achievements for over twenty-five years. After her own successful corporate career in a variety of sales, sales management, and sales training positions with companies such as Avon Products and The Knoll division of Westinghouse, Susan founded New York–based Global Learning Link in 1996. Her unique combination of a master’s degree in adult learning and practical corporate sales experience makes her one of the most soughtafter speakers and sales trainers around the world. Susan has worked with audiences in Asia, South America, Europe, and North America for companies such as Chanel, Colgate Palmolive, Goldman Sachs, Lenox, The Bank of New York Mellon, Estee Lauder, Scholastic, and Time Warner. She is a member of SMT: Center for Sales Excellence and has served on the board of directors for several years. Susan was a 2004 finalist for the American Business Awards ‘‘Best Sales Trainer of the Year’’ award. Her book Negotiate Like the Big Guys is available on amazon.com. Please visit her website at www.GlobalLearningLink.com for additional information. Kenneth R. Phillips is founder and CEO of Phillips Associates, a performance management and sales performance training, consulting, and publishing company. He has been in the workplace learning and performance field for more than twenty years and has worked with organizations from a wide variety of different industries. A partial list of previous clients served includes Shell Oil Company, John Deere, Banta Corporation, Wausau Paper, Richardson Electronics, and Foremost Farms USA.

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Over the years Ken has personally designed and developed dozens of different performance management and sales performance training programs and has delivered training to audiences around the world. He also has authored more than two dozen best-selling performance management and sales performance learning instruments, multi-rater assessment systems, games, and handbooks. In addition, he has written numerous articles that have appeared in T + D and Training Today magazines. Prior to pursuing a Ph.D. in the combined fields of organizational behavior and educational administration at Northwestern University, Ken held management positions with two colleges and two national corporations. He also earned the Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) credential from national ASTD in 2006. You can contact Ken either by phone at (847) 231-6068 or by e-mail at [email protected]. Bob Rickert is a regional sales manager for Aarthun Performance Group (APG) and is responsible for selling and implementing profitimprovement solutions that deliver hard dollar results for his Fortune 500 clients, which include Grainger, Siemens, OfficeMax, Pella Corporation, Ecolab, and GE. He has over twenty years of sales and sales management experience with The Carnation Company, Ralston Purina, Achieve Global, and Action Systems, where he also launched a global alliance program with five industry-leading customer relationship management (CRM) technology providers that resulted in significant revenue growth. In his current role at APG, his solutions include customized high-impact financially oriented professional/managerial and sales development programs that help companies transform their go-to-market sales strategies. His expertise includes helping sales teams build the competencies to sell at executive levels and to deliver hard-dollar profit improvement solutions that create sustainable competitive advantage. Bob has published a number of white papers on the subject of sales financial intelligence and effective value selling, and he is a contributing author to Sales Training Solutions, a book published in 2006.

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Michael Rockelmann is a talent management and performance specialist who has worked in the human resource, training, and organization development field for over a decade. During this time he has held fulltime positions and ran his own consulting practice, Driving Results. He has worked with several Fortune 500 and 1000 companies, many small and start-up firms, and several sales consulting organizations. His work includes companies such as Abbott Laboratories, United Air Lines, Dade Behring, CDW, TAP Pharmaceuticals, Motorola, Walgreens, Grainger, Hewitt, Brinker International, and Quaker Oats. Michael’s training experience has included the areas of sales training, management development, general employee development, technical training, and systems training. He has also worked in the areas of competency mapping, organization development, process redesign, compensation, sales incentive design, reward and recognition program design, recruiting and selection, performance management, and succession planning. Currently, Michael is a training manager at a large pharmaceutical company supporting marketing training programs. Michael earned a B.S. degree in industrial psychology/organization development and a master’s degree in human resource education from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Michael can be reached at [email protected]. Gary Summy has over thirty years of experience in sales, sales management, and sales force development, providing value and insight to companies in manufacturing, distribution, and services environments, with significant emphasis on electronics, technology, and communication. Gary is currently director of sales development for Trane Commercial Systems. Prior to joining Trane, Gary was global director of performance development for sales and marketing at Motorola, Inc. For the past ten years, he has been a leader in developing consistent processes for account and opportunity management across diverse global and product environments. Gary is a contributing author in the book Sales Training Solutions and has published several articles for the

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Strategic Account Management Association. He is the past president of SMT: Center for Sales Excellence and is on the board of directors of the Strategic Account Management Association. Gary can be reached at [email protected]. Rick Wills, principle of RRWills Training & Consulting, has a corporate background of sales, marketing, management, and training. Rick spent over twenty years in leadership positions with GROWMARK, Inc., a multibillion-dollar international agricultural organization based in Bloomington, Illinois. Rick’s consulting clients include GE, Sears, Schering, Key Pharmaceutical, Sterling-Winthrop, Laidlaw, Bayer, Monsanto, Bridgestone OTR, and many others. He has conducted training throughout North America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Eurasia. While Rick’s work includes sales, management, and customer service, he also has extensive experience in executive and boards of director development. This upper-level corporate development focuses on strategic planning, smart risk taking, leading change, and other relevant issues. Rick has provided leadership on numerous professional and civic boards. He is past president of SMT: Center for Sales Excellence. His publications include the Sales Training Handbook and numerous articles on sales and sales management. His training has been featured in Sales and Marketing Management, AMA’s Sales Management Update, Personal Selling Power, Rural Horizons, and the SMT Journal, where he was a contributing editor and regular columnist. Rick can be contacted at 309.826.4400 or [email protected]. Trish Uhl, Owl’s Ledge LLC founder and CEO, is passionate about helping people and the organizations they serve to be ready, willing, and able to meet the challenges of the new global economy. As a globally certified Project Management Professional (PMP), and Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP), Trish uses her experience in project management, training, information technology, change management, and global teams to assist organizations in a variety of industries.

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From staffing, to legal, to telecom, accounting, and more, Trish has spent fifteen years assisting corporations such as Hudson Highland, Manpower International, Xerox, Winston & Strawn, Tellabs, Crowe Horwath LLP, and others to achieve their strategic objectives through the planning and execution of business-critical projects. Participating in initiatives close to home, such as job-readiness skills for people in disadvantaged populations, and those farther afield, such as employer training programs for supporting active duty military veterans transitioning back into the civilian workforce, Trish is committed to community service. Trish also believes it important to volunteer and contribute to the industries she serves. She works nationally with the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) on a variety of committees and is proud to serve on her local ASTD chapter’s board of directors. Recognized as a leader in the training industry, Trish is a recipient of Training magazine’s Top Young Trainer Award and is a contributing author of 10 Steps to Successful Teams.

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Page references followed by fig indicate an illustrated figure; followed by t indicate a table; followed by e indicate an exhibit. A Aarthun Performance Group, 8 Accountability, 245 Action learning plans, 130–131 Acuff, J., 262 Advantage Performance Group, 149–150 Advisory group, 195 Annual sales meetings: awards dinner following, 252; checklist for, 255e –260e; five key areas for planning, 250–251; peer-to-peer learning during, 251, 252–253; planning, 250–253; top ten meeting mistakes and how to avoid them, 253–254 The Art of War (Sun Tzu), 13

Audio reinforcement tools, 133– 134 Awards dinner, 252 B Ball, B., 162 Bassett, M. E., 127 Behavior Engineering Model (BEM): on consequences, incentives, or rewards, 99; on data, information, and feedback, 99–100; on environmental support, resources, and tools, 100; on individual capacity, 100; on motives and expectations, 100–101; overview of, 98–99; on skills and knowledge, 101–102

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Benco Dental, 235 Berzinn, H., 135 Bjorklund, C. K., 205 Blanchard, K., 67 Blogs: delivering using, 292; description of, 283; ongoing contact using, 293; presenting and closing using, 291; prospecting using, 288; ReadWriteWeb.com, 295 Bright, D., 138 Bringing Out the Best in People (Daniels), 126 Brinkerhoff, R. O., 27, 28, 149, 152, 157 Brodie, B., 250 Budgets: L&D (Sales Learning and Development), 161; understanding your sales, 29 Building strategic working relationships skills, 69. See also Customers Building trust skills, 68 Business: The Ultimate Resource (2006), 251 Business: aligning sales force plan to corporate initiatives of, 19; analyze your sale team’s needs, 12–15; factors impacting your, 5–7; the financials of your, 9; trends impacting your, 7, 9–11; what executives are saying about your, 11; what you need to know about your, 7–8 Business case: aligning corporate initiatives to your, 18, 19; components of an effective, 16–21; on key measurements tracking success, 20; for sales team investment, 15–16; selling the results up-front, 18, 19; setting realistic time frame for, 18, 20 Business case components: Business Case Worksheet, 19–20; delivering your business case, 17–19; thinking like your CEO, 16–17 Business factors: consumer spending, 6; credit squeeze, 5–6; executive turnover, 6; major cost reductions, 6; shutdown in capital investments,

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6; understanding impact of specific, 5–7 Business impact: challenges associated with measuring, 142–145; combining objective and subjective analysis of, 155–157; of competency models, 62–63; definition of, 142; establishing the links between training and, 149–152; identifying metrics of training, 145–149; Impact Map model measuring, 149–152; making case for subjective analysis of, 152–154; shared responsibility of measuring, 157–158; sorting out the variables of, 144–145; Success Case Method used for analysis of, 27, 152–157. See also ROI (return on investment); Training Business results: defining sales initiative, 31–33; identifying actions needed to produce expected, 96; needs analysis on expected, 95; of on-boarding programs, 218–219; success case methodology measuring training, 27 C Capabilities: determining goals and objectives for, 112–115; importance of individual, 111. See also Sales skills Capability development plan: definition of, 112; determining goals and objectives of, 112–115; holistic approach of, 115, 116–118; line leader involvement of, 115, 118–121; transparency component of, 115, 116 Capital investment shutdown, 6 Celebrating success, 267 Center for Corporate and Human Development, 136 CEOs (chief executive officers): current pressure facing, 7; gaining sales initiative support from, 25–26; making a business case by thinking like your, 16–17, 19

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CFOs (chief financial officers), 33–35 Champions, 195 Change: answering the WIIFM (What’s on It for Me) question on, 243; identifying and breaking through barriers to, 244; laying foundation for, 241; linking company goals to, 244; your view of new products/services, 243 Change management: relationships as foundation of, 41; sales meeting role of, 239e –260e Closing to customers, 281, 291–292 Coffee Cup Company, 165, 166–167 Colgate-Palmolive, 137–138 Communication: assessment and feedback on, 68; creating management support of training through, 194–195; email, 281–282; global and diversity issues related to, 268–269; listening component of, 279–280; between sales management and training, 186. See also Feedback; Social media; Web 2.0 Competencies: assessing salespeoples,’ 185; core salespeople, 184–185; identification of, 169–171; model for identifying and improving, 47–65 Competency models: business impact of using, 62–63; creating a sales, 47–48; creating instructional strategy using, 63–65; example of technology solutions sales manager, 51–53; example of technology solutions salespeople, 48–50; hiring profiles developed using, 53–61; identifying predictable and repeatable patterns in, 48; job tasks defined by, 46–47; solving process gap problem using, 62. See also Salespeople Competition: analysis of winning strategies used by, 13, 15; responding to increased, 2–3; taking contrarian strategy versus low-risk approaches of, 4

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Conflict management, 266 Connors, J., 136 Conrad, S., 161 Consequences: BEM (Behavior Engineering Model) on, 99; using carrot versus stick reinforcement, 125–126 Consumer spending, 6 Contact networks: description of, 284; ongoing contact using, 294; prospecting using, 288–289; qualifying using, 290 Content: on-board program Matrix Content, 221e –222e; reviewing training, 129; shaping message, 29–30 Contests (post-training), 134–136 Corporate culture: as collaboration enablers and barriers, 177–178; defining and uncapping your own, 252; definition of, 251; as meeting planning factor, 250–251. See also Cultural differences Covey, S.M.R., 275–276 CPG industry, 114 Credibility: how to gain, 24–25; importance and definition of, 24 Credit squeeze, 5–6 Cultural differences, 268–269. See also Corporate culture Customer relationship management (CRM) system: expanding your, 275–277; using technology to support, 275; Web 2.0 technologies and social media support of, 277–296 Customers: assessment/feedback on focus skills related to, 69; delivering to, 292–293; expanding your relationship with, 275–277; high-trust versus low-trust relationship with, 275–276; ongoing contact with, 293–294; presenting and closing product/service sales to, 291–292; prospecting potential, 287–289; qualifying process when meeting potential, 289–290; ‘‘voice of the,’’

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21; Web 2.0 technologies and social media used with, 277–296. See also Building strategic working relationships skills; Salespeople D Daniels, A., 126 Debriefing training, 187–188 Dechert-Hampe Consulting, 162 Delivering to customers, 281, 292–293 Discussion boards: delivering using, 292; description of, 282; ongoing contact using, 293; presenting and closing using, 291; prospecting using, 287–288; qualifying using, 290 Discussion Model: on goals of collaboration, 164–166; illustrated diagram of, 164fig; on process of collaboration, 167–168; on resources for collaboration, 168–169; on roles of collaboration, 166–167; sales and L&D collaboration using, 163–169 Distraction elimination, 128 Duarte, D., 268 E Eastman Kodak Company, 127 Ebbinghaus, H., 125 Economic downturns: lessons learned from past, 4–5; responding to the, 2–3; as time to invest in your salespeople, 3 Edelson, M., 111 ‘‘The Eight Critical Success Factors of a High Performance Sales and Marketing Organization’’ (Marterella), 45 Email communication, 281–282 Employees. See Salespeople Enterprise social software (Enterprise 2.0), 278 Environment support, BEM (Behavior Engineering Model) on, 100 The Essential Guide to Training Global Audiences (Irwin and McClay), 269

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Evaluating Training Programs (Kirkpatrick), 141 Evaluation: Post-Orientation, 223e –225e; ‘‘Smile Sheet,’’ 131, 132e –133e Executive summary (sale initiative), 30, 35 Executive training support, 196 Executive turnover, 6 F Facebook, 288, 289, 294–295 Feedback: accurate portrayal required for accurate, 67–68; BEM (Behavior Engineering Model) on, 99–100; as ‘‘Breakfast of Champions,’’ 67; creating management support of training through, 194–195; on sales initiative progress updates, 36–38; by sales managers on training, 189, 191–193; to virtual team members, 266–267. See also Communication Feedback tools: Sales Skills Assessment—Other, 68–70, 83–92; Sales Skills Assessment—Self, 68–69, 72–82; tips for using, 70–71 Fischer, C. D., 67 Follow-up sessions, 119fig, 120–121, 136, 188–189 Fox, D., 133, 134 Frito-Lay, 162 Frontier FS Sales and Marketing, 184 G Gaining commitment skills, 69 Gap analysis. See Performance gap GFS, Inc., 183 Gilbert, T., 98 GlobeSmart, 268 Google, 152 Google Video, 300 Graham, J., 23 Griggs, I., 296 Gross profit: analysis of sales team’s ability to protect, 12–13; understanding your business, 9–11

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Gross profit margin: analysis of sales team’s ability to protect, 12–13; understanding your business, 9–11 H Harvard Management Update (Ross), 270 Harvard University Competency Dictionary, 68 ‘‘The Hawthorne effect,’’ 126 Hiatt, T., 45 High Impact Learning (Brinkerhoff), 157 Hiring profiles: analyzing competency gaps between ideal and actual, 58; using competency models to develop, 53–61; example of competency model used for, 59–61; objective vs. subjective competencies, 54–58; testing against the model, 54. See also New hires Holistic capacity development: description of, 115; in-person practice component of, 117fig –118; on-the-job application component of, 117fig, 118; three-pronged approach to, 116–118; transfer knowledge component of, 117fig Human resources, 216 Humor, 248–249 I Ilgen, D. R., 67 Impact Map model: business impact analysis using the, 155–158; example of, 150t; training-business impact linked using, 149–152. See also Success Case Method In-person practice, 117fig –118 Incentives: BEM (Behavior Engineering Model) on, 99; as collaboration enablers and barriers, 178; post-training contests and, 134–136; virtual team, 267. See also Motivation; Rewards Independent, 296

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Individual capacity, 100 Industry market trends, 14–15 Instant messaging: delivering using, 292–293; description of, 285; etiquette for, 301–302; sales force development using, 297 IRR (internal rate of return), 34 Irwin, L., 268, 269 J Jensen, P., 199–200 Job task competency models: for sales management in technology solutions industry, 51–53; for salespeople in technology solutions industry, 48–50 Job tasks: competency model defining, 46–47; identifying predictable and repeatable patterns of, 48; strategic planning decisions on, 47; tactical planning of, 46. See also Performance gap; Salespeople Johnson, A., 296 Jokes, 248–249 Jordan, L., 235 JP Morgan study, 6 K Kirkpatrick, D., 141 Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands (Morrison, Conaway, and Conaway), 269 Knoll, 138 Knowledge: BEM (Behavior Engineering Model) on, 101–102; defining needed improvements in, 104; product knowledge qualification testing of, 137; transfer of, 117fig. See also Learning Knowledge gap, 62. See also Performance gap Knowledge transfer, 117fig L L&D and sales collaboration: barriers and enablers to, 176fig –178; for building strong sales S&D staff, 175–176; Discussion Model on, 164–169; need for, 162–163;

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questions for reflection on, 179–180; steps for effective, 169–175 L&D and sales collaboration steps: 1: identify skills and competencies, 169–171; 2: segregate the list between L&D and sales-L&D collaboration, 171–172; 3: determine how sales and L&D will collaborate, 172–175 L&D (Sales Learning and Development): budgets of, 161; building strong staff, 175–176; collaboration between sales and, 162–175; purpose of, 162; sentiments of sales managers on, 162–163. See also Training Language issues, 268 Leadership: change management, 41, 239e –260e; growth strategy role played by, 15; meeting, 236–260e; pressing for a decision or clear next step by, 19; sales teams’ needs analysis report made to, 12–15; virtual sales team, 261–271; winning sales initiatives support from, 23–43. See also Sales management Learning: defining specific needed, 104–105; ensuring participant, 105–106; needs analysis to determine needed, 12–15, 95–102, 107, 207–208; peer-to-peer, 251, 252–253; repetition spacing effect for, 125, 135. See also Knowledge Learning contracts, 128–129 Lewis, R., 269, 279 Light bulb page, 130 Lincoln Consulting group, 45 Line leader involvement: capacity development role of, 115, 118–119; engaging in trainer/moderator roles for, 119fig, 120; post-program follow-up for, 119fig, 120–121; pre-program preparation for, 119fig –120 LinkedIn, 288–289

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M Major cost reductions, 6 MarComm Store, 133–134 Market trends: analysis of your industry, 14–15; gross profit and gross profit margin, 9–11; importance of anticipating, 7; ‘‘voice of the customer’’ to track, 21 Marterella, J., 45 Mayo, E., 126 McClay, R., 199, 261, 268, 269 McKinsey studies: on business investment decisions during recessions, 4; on pricing relationship to operating profit, 13 Measuring Return on Investment (Phillips), 141 Meeting Leadership Skills Quiz, 236–239 Meeting plan blueprint: for annual sales meeting, 250–253, 255e –260e; electronic meetings, 302; five key areas for, 250–251; questions for reflection on, 255; questions to ask when preparing, 239e –240e; steps taken for, 241–246; tips for day of the meeting, 246–250; top ten meeting mistakes and how to avoid them, 254; for virtual teams, 264, 268 Meeting plan blueprint steps: 1: defining real objective or goal, 241; 2: laying foundation for behavior change, 241; 3: introducing new product to sales team, 241–242; 4: communicating your message, 242–243; 5: WIIFM (What’s on It for Me), 243; 6: changing your view of new products/services, 243; 7: linking company goals to needed change, 244; 8: identifying barriers to change, 244; 9: breaking through the barriers, 244; 10: call to action, 245; 11: keeping score for team accountability, 245; 12: assessing meeting leadership and team results, 246 Memory, 125

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Mentoring programs: formal, 138; as on-board program resource, 217; peer, 134 Message content, 29–30 Micro-blogging: delivering using, 292; description of, 283; ongoing contact using, 293; presenting and closing using, 291; prospecting using, 288 Miller Heiman, 31 Motivation, 101–102. See also Incentives MySpace, 288 N Needs analysis: determining performance gap using, 98–99; on-boarding program, 207–208; of sales teams, 12–15; stakeholders to include in, 97–98; three questions asked/answered during, 95–96 Negotiation skills, 69 New hires: New Hire/Manager Checklist for, 226e –227e; on-boarding programs for, 200–220; virtual team, 265–266. See also Hiring profiles The New York Times, 296 ‘‘Non-revenue-generating’’ investments, 5 O Objective data: business analysis combining subjective and, 155–157; comparing subjective and, 154; disadvantages of business impact analysis using, 152–154 On-boarding program worksheets: Content Matrix, 207e, 221e –222e; matrix on program benefits, 207e; New Hire/Manager Checklist, 226e –227e; Orientation Agenda, 227e –234e; Post-Orientation Evaluation, 223e –225e On-boarding programs: benefits of, 203–204; challenges of, 204–205; defining audience for, 208–209; defining delivery methods of,

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217–218; defining scope, content, and objectives of, 209–212; determining needs for, 207–208; getting started with, 206–207; identifying resources and tools for, 216–217; measuring success of, 218–219; overview of, 200–203; product training component of, 212–213; questions for reflection on, 220; sales management support of, 205–206; sample list of topics, 210e –212e; timing of, 204–205, 213–215; updating and improving, 219 On-the-job application: environmental resources and support of, 106–107; holistic capacity development and, 117fig, 118 On-the-job training: activities related to, 212e; on-boarding programs component of, 200–220 Onaitis, S., 123 Operating expenses. See SG&A (selling, general, and administrative) costs O’Reilly, T., 277 Organizational culture. See Corporate culture Orientation Agenda, 227e –234e Orientation. See On-boarding programs Outcomes: defining sales initiative, 31–33; identifying actions needed to produce expected, 96; needs analysis on expected, 95; of on-boarding programs, 218–219; success case methodology measuring training, 27 Outsourcing decisions, 102–103 P Participants: business impact analysis identifying each, 156; debriefing, 187–188; ensuring learning by, 105–106; identifying on-boarding program, 208–209; management training preparation of, 187; needs analysis to determine needs of, 12–15, 95–102, 107, 207–208; post-orientation evaluation by,

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223e –225e; ‘‘Smile Sheet’’ evaluation by, 131, 132e –133e; tips on engaging sales meeting, 247–250; training course workbook provided to, 129–133e Peer mentoring, 134 Peer training, 138 Peer-to-peer learning, 251, 252–253 PepsiCo Foods International (Australia), 162 Performance: back on the job support of, 106–107; managing virtual team, 266–267 Performance gap: BEM (Behavior Engineering Model) used to determining, 98–102; capability development plan goals/objectives based on, 112–115; competency models used to solve problem of, 62; implementing training to close the, 103–107; needs analysis to determine, 12–15, 98–99, 107, 207–208. See also Job tasks; Knowledge gap; Process gaps Performance reviews, 137–138 Persuasion, 41 Phillips, J., 141 Phillips, K. R., 67, 72 Plaxo, 288 Podcasting. See Video casting Post-Orientation Evaluation Worksheet, 223e –225e Post-training activities: audio reinforcement tools, 133–134; contests and incentives, 134–136; follow-up sessions, 136; peer mentoring, 119fig, 120–121, 134, 188 Pre-training activities: pre-work, 127–128, 130; program review, 127; taking advantage of ‘‘teaching moments,’’ 126–127 Pre-work activities: follow-up on, 130; value of, 127–128 Presenting to customers, 281, 291–292 Princeton University, 274

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Process gaps, 62. See also Performance gap Product managers, 216–217 Products/services: on-board training on, 212–213; qualification testing knowledge about, 137; sales team meeting introducing, 241–242, 243. See also Sales process Professional Motivational Technologies (PMT), 135, 137 Program review, 127 Progress reports (sales initiative), 36–38 Prospecting customers, 281, 287–289 Q Qualifying customers, 281, 289–290 R R&D (research & development) patterns, 5 ReadWriteWeb.com, 295 Recessions: lessons learned from past, 4–5; responding to the current, 2–3; as time to invest in your salespeople, 3 Reinforcement. See Training reinforcement Repetition spacing effect, 125, 135 Reputation, 24 Returns: IRR (internal rate of return), 34; ROI (return on investment), 26–33 Rewards: BEM (Behavior Engineering Model) on, 99; using carrot approach to reinforcement, 125–126; virtual team, 267. See also Incentives Rickert, B., 1 ROA (return on assets), 34 Rockelmann, M., 93, 287 ROI (return on investment): defining the sales initiative, 26–31; measuring sales initiative outcomes and, 31–33; measuring the training, 142–158, 186–187;

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needs analysis on expected, 95–96; Phillips’ fifth evaluation level of, 141; sale management’s leverage of training, 187–189. See also Business impact Ross, J., 270 Ryerson Steel, 133 S Sales 2.0, 277 Sales and L&D collaboration: barriers and enablers to, 176fig –178; for building strong sales S&D staff, 175–176; Discussion Model on, 164–169; need for, 162–163; questions for reflection on, 179–180; steps for effective, 169–175 Sales and L&D collaboration steps: 1: identify skills and competencies, 169–171; 2: segregate the list between L&D and sales-L&D collaboration, 171–172; 3: determine how sales and L&D will collaborate, 172–175 Sales department: building strong staff, 175–176; collaboration between L&D (Sales Learning and Development) and, 162–175; initiatives of, 24–39 Sales force development: specific ideas for using technology for, 300; technological tools to use for, 296–299 Sales initiatives: budgeting process and timing of, 33–35; considering the audience of, 25–26; credibility of, 24–25; defining outcomes of, 31–33; defining the return on, 26–31; planning for leadership support of, 40–41; progress updates on, 36–38; results of gaining leadership support for, 38–39; selling the, 35–36; summary of steps for gaining leadership support of, 39

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Sales management: accountability of, 182; communication between sales training and, 186; competencies required for, 184–185; creating sales training support by, 194–195; as on-board program resource, 216; on-boarding program support of, 205–206; questions for reflection on training and, 198; responsibilities associated with, 182–184; staff skill assessment role by, 186–187. See also Leadership Sales managers: building relationships between salespeople and, 195–197; developing candidates for, 196–197; example of competency models for, 51–53; leveraging ROTI (return on training investments), 187–189; line leader capacity development involvement of, 115, 118–121; maximizing training resources, 190–191; meeting leadership skills, 236–260e; using on-boarding programs to orient new salespeople, 200–220; presence during training by, 128; providing sales training feedback, 189, 191–193; reinforcement techniques used by, 124–139; sales behaviors modeled by, 189–190; sales management role/responsibilities of, 181–198; sales training as resource to, 193–194; sentiments about L&D by, 162–163; training as shared responsibility with, 157–158; training follow up by, 119fig, 120–121, 136, 188–189; of virtual sales teams, 261–271 Sales meeting planning: annual sales meetings, 250–253, 255e –260e; electronic meetings, 302; five key areas for, 250–251; questions for reflection on, 255; questions to ask when preparing, 239e –240e; steps taken for, 241–246; tips for day of

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the meeting, 246–250; top ten meeting mistakes and how to avoid them, 254; for virtual sales team, 264, 268 Sales process: applying available technologies to, 287–296; six steps listed, 281; table representing six steps of, 281–286; table showing technologies available for, 281–286. See also Products/services Sales process steps: 1. prospecting, 281, 287–289; 2. qualifying, 281, 289–290; 3. presenting, 281, 291–292; 4. closing, 281, 291–292; 5. delivering, 281, 292–293; 6. ongoing contact, 281, 293–294 Sales skills: assessment and feedback on, 69; BEM (Behavior Engineering Model) on, 101–102; defining needed improvements in, 104; identification of, 169–171; management support of assessing, 186–187; modeled by sales managers, 189–190. See also Capabilities Sales Skills Assessment—Other: applications of, 69–70; as feedback tool, 68; instructions on how to use, 83–84; questions listed, 85–90; scoring the, 91–92; six items covered by, 68–69 Sales Skills Assessment—Self: applications of, 69; as feedback tool, 68; instructions on how to use, 72–73; questions listed, 74–79; scoring the, 80–82; six items covered by, 68–69 Sales Team Analysis Worksheet, 14–15 Sales teams: accountability of, 245; critical success factors of, 14, 15; leading virtual, 261–271; needs analysis of your, 12–15; origins and increased use of, 114 Salespeople: assessing competencies of, 185; building relationships between sales managers and, 195–197; core competencies of effective,

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184–185; current challenges facing, 1–2; developing sales manager candidates from, 196–197; equipped to face new challenges, 13; hiring profiles for adding, 53–61; importance of investing in your, 3; on-boarding programs for new, 200–234; process versus knowledge gap of, 62; responding to economic downturns/increased competition, 2–3; training as shared responsibility with, 157–158. See also Competency models; Customers; Job tasks; Training Search engines: description of, 282–283; ongoing contact using, 293–294; presenting and closing using, 291–292; prospecting using, 288; qualifying using, 290 Services. See Products/services SG&A (selling, general, and administrative) costs: spending less during expansionary periods, 4–5; spending more during recessions, 4; understanding trends of your, 10 Shafer, D., 183–184 Sharing success stories, 137 Skills. See Sales skills Skype, 268 SMEs (subject-matter experts): as collaboration enablers and barriers, 177; L&D and sales collaboration role of, 168–169, 176; as on-board program resource, 206, 216; sales meeting preparation of, 242; training programs development role of, 174 ‘‘Smile Sheet’’ evaluation, 131, 132e –133e Snyder, N., 268 Social media: applying to sales process, 287–294; description and forms of, 278–279; pitfalls of using, 295–296; questions for reflection on using, 304; real time versus any time of, 280; sales force development using, 296–302;

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success stories on using, 294–295; suggested activities/exercises for using, 303; table showing technologies available for sales process, 281–286. See also Communication; Web 2.0 Social networking: description of, 284; ongoing contact using, 294; pitfalls of using, 295–296; prospecting using, 288–289; qualifying using, 290; success stories on using, 294–295 Solta Medical, 250 Spacing effect, 125, 135 The Speed of Trust (Covey), 275 Storytelling, 249 Strategic Selling program (Miller Heiman), 31 Subject-matter experts. See SMEs (subject-matter experts) Subjective data: business analysis combining objective and, 155–157; comparing objective and, 154; disadvantage of objective versus, 152–154 Success Case Method: business impact analysis using, 152–157; description of, 27. See also Impact Map model Summy, G., 141 Sun Tzu, 13 T TADD (technological attention deficit disorder), 247 Taylor, M. S., 67 ‘‘Teaching moments,’’ 126–127 Team selling. See Sales teams Technology: applications to sales process, 287–294; common misconceptions about using, 274; expanding your relationships using, 275–277; global communication, 268; how it complements rapport, 275; minimizing TADD (technological attention deficit disorder), 247; as on-board program resource, 217;

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opportunities available through, 274; pitfalls of, 295–296; questions for reflection on using, 304; sales force development and use of, 296–302; success stories on use of, 294–295; table to facilitate effective use of, 280–286; Web 2.0 and social media, 277–304 Teleconferencing, 297 Telling Training’s Story (Brinkerhoff), 157 Text messaging: delivering using, 292–293; description of, 285; sales force development using, 300 Thalheimer, W., 125, 131 Time frame: for on-boarding programs, 204–205, 213–215; for sales initiative proposal, 30–31; for selling the sales initiative, 36; setting realistic, 18–19, 20; starting and closing sales meetings, 246–247 The Top Ten Meeting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, 253–260 Training: advisory group and champions of, 195; business impact of, 62–63; competency models used as basis of, 46–65; continuous and ongoing nature of, 123; course workbook used for, 129–131; creating instructional strategy for, 63–65; creating management support for, 194–195; debriefing, 187–188; eliminating distractions during, 128; feedback provided by sales managers on, 189, 191–193; follow-up to, 119fig, 120–121, 136, 188–189; learning contracts used during, 128–129; management presence during, 128, 190–194; maximizing resources for, 190–191; measuring ROI (return on investment), 142–158, 186–187; need for, 45–46; on-boarding programs for, 200–220; outsourcing versus internal, 102–103, 107; post-training activities, 133–136;

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process gap problem of, 62; product, 212–213; reinforcement of, 124–139; as resource to sales managers, 193–194; reviewing design and contents of, 129; as shared responsibility, 157–158. See also Business impact; L&D (Sales Learning and Development); Salespeople Training course workbook: action learning plan component of, 130–131; follow-up on pre-work component of, 130; light bulbs page, 130; materials to include in the, 129; ‘‘Smile Sheet’’ evaluation, 131, 132e –133e Training follow-up, 188–189 Training implementation: decisions on how to ensuring learning, 105–106; defining audience needs, 104–105; defining what knowledge/skills need to improved, 104 Training reinforcement: activities during the training for, 128–133e; carrot versus stick approach to, 125–126; examining necessity of, 124; post-training activities facilitating, 133–136; pre-training activities facilitating, 126–128; reflecting on process of, 139; repetition spacing effect and, 125, 135; suggested techniques for, 137–138 Training solutions: basic questions to ask about, 94–95; implementing the best, 103–108; importance of determining right, 93–94; needs analysis to determine, 12–15, 95–102, 107, 207–208; outsourcing decisions related to, 102–103, 107 Transparency (capacity development): description of, 115; tips on ensuring, 116 Twitter, 288, 289, 296

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U Uhl, T., 273 Upper management support, 196 V Video casting: delivering using, 292; description of, 286; ongoing contact using, 293; presenting and closing using, 291; prospecting using, 289; sales force developing using, 297, 300 Virtual sales teams: building successful, 262; challenges related to leading, 261–262; creating the, 263–264; face-to-face meetings of, 264; global considerations related to, 268–269; maintaining remote relationships, 264–265; managing new hires, 265–266; managing performance of, 266–267; questions for reflection on, 270–271 ‘‘Voice of the customer,’’ 21 W Wal-Mart’s ‘‘Roommate Style Match’’ Facebook group, 294–295 Wall Street Journal, 8 Web 2.0: applying to sales process, 287–294; gathering information through, 279–280; origins and description of, 277–278; pitfalls of using, 295–296; questions for reflection on using, 304; real time versus any time of, 280; relationship focus of, 279; sales force development using, 296–302; success stories on using, 294–295; suggested activities/exercises for using, 303; table showing technologies available for sales process, 281–286. See also Communication; Social media Webcasting: delivering using, 293; description of, 286; ongoing

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contact using, 294; prospecting using, 289; qualifying using, 290; sales force developing using, 298–299 Western Electric Hawthorne Works studies, 126 Western Michigan University, 149 When Cultures Collide (Lewis), 269 Whitney, C., 295 WIIFM (What’s on It for Me), 243 Wiki, 300 Wikipedia, 280 Williams, B., 184 Wills, R., 181 Word Cloud, 273fig Work-Learning Research, Inc., 125

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Worksheets: business case for sales team investment, 19–20; Content Matrix, 221e –222e; Meeting Leadership Skills Quiz, 236–239; Meeting Plan Blueprint, 239e –240e; New Hire/Manager Checklist, 226e –227e; Orientation Agenda, 227e –234e; Post-Orientation Evaluation, 223e –225e; Sales Team Analysis, 14–15; ‘‘Smile Sheet’’ evaluation, 131, 132e –133e; The Top Ten Meeting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, 253–260 WorldNet Search, 274 The Wynhurst Group, 200, 202 Y YouTube, 296, 300

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FORTIFY Essential resources for training and HR professionals

McClay EDITOR

Praise for Fortify Your Sales Force “This is an excellent no-nonsense resource for the novice or seasoned sales leader, salesperson, or sales training professional. Jam-packed with valuable information from a variety of industry experts, this book is a must have for anyone responsible for enhancing the performance of their sales organization.”

MARY A. ELLIOTT BASSETT worldwide director, sales and customer training, Eastman Kodak Company

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“Renie McClay has compiled a great body of material for sales leaders in all industries to reference as they’re looking for expertise, seasoned experience and fresh ideas to help them inspire top performance from their teams. Leaders looking for ways to continue to grow in their skills and profession will benefit from the great reference, Fortify Your Sales Force, for a long time.”

KEVIN MOORE region sales manager, Kraft Foods

T HE EDITOR

Renie McClay has managed sales training for three Fortune 500 Companies, including Kraft, Novartis, and Pactiv (makers of Hefty). She spent 20 years in sales, account management, sales management, and sales training roles with Kraft. She has hired and managed sales teams and sales trainers. Her company, Inspired Learning, helps companies to design and deliver programs and curriculum for new and veteran sales people and sales management globally. Renie is a past president of SMT: Center for Sales Excellence and the author of Sales Training Solutions, 10 Steps to Successful Teams, and The Essential Guide to Training Global Audiences.

“To truly be successful as a leader, especially in a rapidly changing world such as sales, you must continuously stay on top of the latest insights and thoughts in the field. What’s needed is a resource that collects the best ideas and brings them together in one place. Renie McClay, in her latest book, Fortify Your Sales Force: Leading and Training Exceptional Teams, has done just that. She has reached out to several thought leaders in the sales and sales training field, asked them to address a particular sales/sales training topic and put their thoughts together in one accessible resource. This is a must own, especially for all sales training leaders.”

DARYL THOMAS senior manager, sales development and education, FedEx Office

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focus for your sales force. For sales managers, there are tips for onboarding new sales people into the organization, leading virtual sales teams, reinforcing training to make it stick, and planning effective sales meetings. For sales people, there are a self-assessment and ideas on how to use emerging technology to sell. In addition, the book offers critical information on how to determine the impact of training, and what it takes to survive in a down economy.

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“With its emphasis on measurement and implementation, this book covers areas that are too often neglected and makes a useful and practical contribution.”—PROFESSOR NEIL RACKHAM, author, SPIN Selling

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Sa l es Force When an organization wants to gain and maintain a competitive advantage, it is essential that they provide the right sales training to the right sales people at the right time. Fortify Your Sales Force is a hands-on resource for any organization that wants to increase profitability and thrive in today’s highly competitive marketplace. The book is filled with the real-life experiences from more than a dozen seasoned sales training professionals who have worked with a range of Fortune 500 companies that represent a wide variety of industries. These experts clearly define successful methods for leading and training an effective sales force in this era of limited resources and cut budgets. They offer the proven tools for any company that wants to increase the effectiveness of their sales force. The book gives a behind-the-scenes look at training experiences from leading companies such as Motorola, Proctor & Gamble, Kraft, Ricoh, United Airlines, and RR Donnelly. Based on their real-life experiences, the contributors reveal how to get internal support and funding of training initiatives, how to choose the right solution, the role leadership plays in successful training, and offer information on how to assess the competencies and needs of the sales force. Fortify Your Sales Force shows what it takes to make certain the customer is the primary