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MindTickle.com 1
Sales Talent Transformation:
Building Competencies that Last
December 14, 2017
Daniel Kuperman,Director of Product Marketing, MindTickle
MindTickle.com 2
OverviewThe buyer’s journey and sales cycle is increasingly complex
in today’s rapidly changing sales environment. This requires a
deeper knowledge, a broader skill set, and an entirely different
approach to training sales representatives. What’s needed is
an ongoing learning program that kicks in after foundational
competencies and onboarding have been completed.
This whitepaper is based on the accompanying webinar in
partnership with SiriusDecisions and aims to define the process
for creating ongoing learning that sticks. It will give you an
understanding of the goals, roles, and measurement involved
and demonstrate its business value to your organization.
What’s wrong with learning?In an ideal world, effective learning is the combination of
acquiring the skills, knowledge, and process required to do an
amazing job. Easy and straightforward, right?
Not so much. There are some frightening statistics around the
state of traditional learning. Some of my favorites include a
staggering 87% of all learning forgotten in the first 30 days, or
57% of organizations allot less than 15 days per year to all types
of ongoing learning. The reasons for this are several: learning
takes time away from selling, learning can often be a reaction to
a particular situation rather than part of a long-term plan, it can
be hurried, overloaded, badly designed, and worst of all, offer
limited measurement.
of organizations allot less than 15 days per year to all types of ongoing learning.
15%
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How can ongoing learning fix this?Ongoing learning is the practice of continuously engaging sales reps at
different times, with different content, and using different techniques
which helps reps to perform beyond their perceived capabilities. By design,
it offers learning in a structured and unstructured way that increases
engagement and the retention of knowledge. It offers a feedback loop for
continual assessment and reward. And most importantly, it’s measurable.
Because without measurement, it’s impossible to manage.
Ongoing learning should satisfy three key needs:
Developing an effective learning strategyAn effective learning strategy will meet these three needs head on.
It will enable you to create ongoing learning that equips your reps
with current and future competencies, addresses their needs as well
as those of the organization, captures their attention and promotes
retention, and can be measured by outcomes that can tie directly to
performance goals.
This is particularly vital in a sales environment. For many occupations,
training and learning is a case of teaching then asking whether the
subject did the learning, passed the test, etc. In sales, the focus is
on teaching, then finding out if the person can actually put this new
knowledge and skill into practice. It’s not a question of asking “did you
do it?” it’s more “can you do it?” So how do we do that?
Occupational
Does it align to the current competencies of the organization? Does the rep need it to be successful in their job?
Aspirational
Does it align to future competencies? Does it provide what the rep needs to move on to their next role?
Inspirational
Does it align to the rep’s interests and curiosities? Will the rep want to know more?
1 2 3
Tell
Show
Do
Reinforce
Own3
4MindTickle.com
STEP 1
TELLStart with a tell phase to establish the foundational knowledge
needed by the rep to execute their responsibilities. This includes
telling them everything they need to know about the buyer, the
offering, how the offering is different, and the messaging that should
be used around the offering. It’s the responsibility of the sales
enablement team, with collaboration from the product or portfolio
management team, to collect all the accumulated knowledge and
create the instructional design.
Tactics could include:
E-learning
White papers
Industry publications
Customer testimonials
Sales success stories
Subject matter expert videos or webinars
Competitive analysis
Industry research
Playbooks
Instructor-led sessions
Measurement at this stage would be centered around comprehension
which could be tested online, inline, or using an incredibly effective
tool, the teach-back, where reps are asked to teach others what they
have just learned. You can also leverage technology to make this
process fun for the rep, easy to distribute, and measurable by using
video role-play technology.
5
STEP 2
SHOWThis stage will illustrate what good looks like in a demonstrative way
for activities, interactions, and deliverables.
This might include reps observing buyer interactions, seeing what
assets are being used, and learning what tactics hit home. Like Step
One, it falls on the sales enablement team and product managers to
make this material available.
Tactics could include:
Peer mentoring
Field observations
Active-listening tools
Audio/video recording
Sample templates
Prep checklists
Call scripts
This stage can be measured by things like formal debriefs and
structured observational forms to assess activity and the application
of the knowledge gained in Step One. Here again technology can play
a big role if you are dealing with a large team. Some sales enablement
vendors allow you to create electronic forms for field observation in
which you can easily capture and analyze the observable behaviors
and aggregate the results across all reps into charts that show
patterns and trends.
MindTickle.com
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STEP 3
DOThis is where practice comes in and we apply the foundational
knowledge gained and the understanding of what good looks like.
In this stage, the reps do it over and over again. They might practice
conversations, role-play different scenarios, or develop a pitch that
suits their personalities and their customers. Sales enablement will
play a key role here with sales leadership guiding individuals and
teaching proven soft skills.
Tactics could include:
Team and one-on-one role-playing
Audio/video based practice and coaching
Pitching to peers
Scorecards whether human or technology based
Checklists
Scripts
Case studies
The skills attained against a set of criteria could be measured in this
stage by scoring role-play, for example. A word of caution is required
here if you plan on using video role-play technology. Make sure that
you can setup different evaluation parameters for different sales
scenarios. Those parameters can be customized to accurately capture
the different skills required from the reps, and the tool should be able
to provide analytics for surfacing areas of concern and identifying
where reinforcement might be needed.
MindTickle.com
7
STEP 4
REINFORCEThis is where the rubber meets the road. The objective in this
stage is to ensure the rep can fully execute in a live environment!
Consistently over time.
This is where learning is reinforced by coaching in observed
conversations and real scenarios. Some companies even do this in
front of their actual customers. With the help of sales enablement,
sales leaders take the charge here and do everything they can to
test their reps.
Tactics could include:
Field coaching playbooks
Checklists
Scripts
Annotated templates
Sales motion playbooks
Guided selling
Again, the skills attained against a set of criteria could be
measured in this stage by observing and scoring behavior against
a common criteria.
MindTickle.com
MindTickle.com 8
STEP 5
OWNThe final stage! The objective here is to transfer the accountability
for the previous four stages to the rep and measure against
expected impact.
This is where the rep takes ownership of the competency they
have picked up. This might mean a certification and subsequent
recertification over time. It might require the rep to track
against established metrics to self-score, or to advocate for this
knowledge with others. The responsibility is now with the rep,
but they can still collaborate with sales operations and sales
enablement for assessment and help.
Tactics could include:
Survey-based assessments
Sales success stories
Program dashboards
Master monitor programs
We measure the impact of acquired competency at this stage.
This could be in the form of self assessment and measurement
against leading and lagging KPIs.
MindTickle.com 9
Forward through technology
Technology brings effective learning to new levels of
engagement by taking knowledge to the point of need and
supporting better coaching. As SiriusDecisions mentioned
during our webinar, 87% of all learning is forgotten after 30
days. If I wanted to wallpaper my living room, I would watch a how-to video the day of, not a month before! Technology allows
for this just-in-time learning and a host of other effective
learning techniques like micro-learning moments that can
help a rep brush up just before a meeting, or daily quizzes to
help with ongoing retention. Here’s where technology helps
the most at each particular stage:of all learning is
forgotten after
30 days.”
“87%
Creation tools:
Voice over
Video
Micro learning
Podcasts
Staged knowledge reinforcement:
Daily quiz
Audio/video
challenge
Asynchronous coaching:
Audio/
video-based role
play
Guided selling:
Sales asset
management
Playbooks
Learning man-agement system:
Learning content
repository
Scheduling tools
Emerging tech:
Virtual reality
Predictive
AI
Primary purpose
Knowledge transfer
Knowledge retention
Knowledge application
Activity alignment
Source of record/delivery
Proactive and coaching automation
Tell
Show
Do
Reinforce
Own
MindTickle.com 10
Good learning is possible! It just requires subject matter that aligns with
the competencies of your company and your reps. Then it needs the
techniques and technology to make it effective and engaging. I’ll leave
you with a brief checklist of things you can do to boost sales enablement
and capabilities in your organization.
Create or update a competency roadmap and align it to your talent
Identify key competency learning gaps in role-based ongoing learning
Assess current programs against this ongoing learning framework
Rethink and rework the way ongoing learning is delivered to ensure attention and retention
Sales enablement and sales training leaders should rethink how they are
deploying and measuring their sales learning programs. Especially when
faced with the new realities of the millennial generation, and increasing
competitive environment because of ever changing market dynamics.
Keeping the sales team up to date can no longer be accomplished with
traditional methods and Learning Management Systems (LMS).
Take the table above as an example. The LMS system is basically a tool
for “telling” reps and falls very short on all other required aspects to truly
build sales competencies. But do you have to really look for different
tools that will cover the entire spectrum? The answer is no. That’s why
we built MindTickle, to give you a comprehensive end-to-end sales
readiness platform that can plug the knowledge-skills gap so prevalent in
today’s organizations.
Take the framework presented in this paper and adapt it to your own organization needs.
If you would like to explore how you can leverage MindTickle to deploy a continuous
learning program, please reach out to us at www.mindtickle.com.
Something to think about
WATCH THE WEBINAR