Optimizing sales training: How Best-in-Class companies implement processes that succeed
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Noiembrie 2011 |
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VLAD DUTESCU - Managing Partner
SANDLER TRAINING ROMANIA |
Adresa
Strada Radu Boiangiu, Nr. 15-17
Ap. 10
011386 Bucuresti, Sector 1
Telefon
+40-722-35.53.41
Website
www.sandler-ro.com
Professionals need benchmarks in order to find their own ways towards betterperformance; below you will find the grounds for a constructive comparison with what has happened up to now within your organisation. Do not expect to find any golden rule, absolute truth or the unique solution. Each company has a special and distinct context, team, business model and a way to do things. What you will findbelow is a 360° comprehensive survey, which reflects Best-in-Class, Industry Average and Laggards companies, helping you check some relevant aspects, and consider the alternatives.
Benchmarking requirements for success
Effective sales training plays a critical role in an organization’s ability to turn strategies into profit. The following is an analysis of how top performers distinguish themselves from other companies through the implementation of capabilities andenablers that support excellence in deploying sales training best practices.
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Best-in-Class performance fast facts
- 63% of Best-in-Class companies offer formal, structured sales training, vs. 36% of Laggards. Informal or on-the-job training is deployed in opposite proportions: 37% of the Best-in-Class and 64% of Laggards.
- 51% of companies rely on internal trainers or subject matter experts; 48% use external providers.
- The Best-in-Class are 14% more likely than other firms to consider sales training “absolutely vital” or “integral to our success”.
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The Best-in-Class PACE Model
The model sales training deployment appears to be one of substantive, ongoing knowledge transfer, in a live setting with instructor-led content around strategic, account-based selling, and supported by frequent reinforcement of key concepts. Using sales training to achieve corporate goals also requires a combination of strategic actions, organizational capabilities, and enabling technologies and servicesthat can be summarized as shown in table 1.
Best-in-Class St rategies
The most popular strategies among Best-in-Class organizations to improve sales effectiveness in the context of sales training are focused on building and sustaining better customer relationships through sales training. While these strategies follow anumber of themes, two stand out: speaking directly to the needs of a sales prospect, and better managing the sales cycle.
Following the above theme of customized, clientcentric conversations, the best sales organizations focus their training strategies around those skills that will most successfully, and repeatedly, open doors with behavior that legitimately addresses the most important needs of the prospect and customer whose business in turn helps the selling team achieve both quota attainment and customer loyalty.
Let’s take a look at a number of best practices in salestraining that the top performers are deploying.
Instructor-Led Training
How do the top-performing organizations deliver best sales practices to their team? The figure on the right shows us that the most traditional approach is secure, in that live, instructor-led sessions are by far considered the most effective modality, among all survey respondents. Such a tried-and-true finding does not detract from the value of contemporary technologies – in fact, 51% of the top performers also use online e-learning, mobile and video modalities to support their instructor-led approach– but merely supports, as a best practice, a proven approach that works.
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“Training is essential to any sales person or manager. Everyone should be cross trained in marketing, management, etc. Even the very seasoned sales/manager/marketing director/ VP can always learn, as well as refresh their skills.“
Marguerite Pollard, Educational Sales Consultant, Zaner-Bloser Publishing
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Post-Training Reinforcement
Best-in-Class companies outpace Laggards by nearly a two-times factor (54% vs. 28%) in providing posttraining reinforcement of the best practices commonly learned in classroom-style, instructor-led sales education sessions. The sales leaders of thesefirms have learned that long-term success depends on underscoring the best practices taught in sales training deployments, not only among the reps thathave experienced the training, but also in extending this knowledge to future hires and other customerfacing functions within the enterprise. Moreover, the concept of “tribal knowledge” is based on an assumption that sales reps themselves, as well asmarketers, customer service professionals and other market-facing staff, can contribute to the enterprise’s understanding of selling best practices. Plus, themodalities used for secondary sales training and beyond can also be more geared toward online and remote support, as opposed to the more costly but still highly beneficial initial or annual classroomstyle approach. In figure 2, we see the significant year-on-year performance deltas enjoyed by adopters of this knowledge management capability, when compared with other firms.
