At ASTD 2014 International Conference & Exposition in Washington D.C., Sales Readiness Group hosted a panel discussion on how to improve the effectiveness of sales training. The panelists were Jenny Dearborn, chief learning officer and senior vice president of SAP, Robby Halford, learning architect of sales enablement at ExactTarget, Maria Leggett, director of learning design for Time Warner Cable, and Ray Makela of the Sales Readiness Group. Roxy Torres, manager of the ASTD Sales Enablement Community of Practice, moderated the discussion.
The goal of the panel discussion was to learn how training leaders were incorporating motivation, spaced learning, customization, reinforcement, and measurement into their sales training programs.
Topic 1: Motivation
Motivating sales people is always a challenge, and motivating sales people to participate in sales training can be particularly challenging. Nevertheless, the panelists agreed that motivation is a key driver of the success of any sales training program and in a lively discussion shared ideas on how to increase motivation.
Jenny Dearborn noted that the surest way to motivate a sales team to participate in a sales training program is ensure that you have executive sponsorship. If the senior executive team believes that sales training is important, then the sales reps will also believe it is important. In that regard, Dearborn noted that she views her primary “client” as the chief sales officer and tries to understand what his or her business goals are for the sales training program. To be viewed as their strategic partner, Jenny emphasized the importance of engaging the chief sales officer in business and sales terms—not training terms.
Robby Halford explained that his approach to increasing motivation involves positioning the training program as a key driver in the sales team’s success. He does this by first positioning himself as the sales person’s advocate. In order to gain credibility with the sales team, Halford advocates that training professionals get out into the field or into the call centers to observe the sales team in action. Only by direct observation can you develop training that is relevant and addresses the sales team’s pain points. And, ultimately, this drives motivation.
Ray Makela added that it is important to communicate the message that the training program is important, and why it is critical to the sales organization. Accordingly, the CEO or the VP of sales should kick off the training, even if it is just video message. This imparts the importance of training and motivates the participants to apply the training on the job.
Maria Leggett reminded the audience that motivators can vary greatly among individuals, as well as sales teams. For example, if you are training a telesales team, they may highly value specific tools that help them have better sales conversations in real time such as a knowledge base or quick reference job aids.
Topic 2: Customization
How important is customization to the overall effectiveness of a sales training program? Not surprisingly, all of the panelists agreed that customization is important
Ray Makela said that by including customer case studies, scenarios, and examples from the salesperson's business is essential to making any sales training program relevant to the participants. This type of customization causes the participants say, “I see you understand my challenges and how I have to sell to my customers.” This better engages the participants so that they will apply what they learn when they return to selling to their customers.
Robby Halford offered a clever strategy he uses for customizing sales training: Prior to training, he offers a reward to sales people for the best sales presentations and sales aids that they were already using. He then selects the best, modifies the messaging and branding if necessary, and uses these tools in the training.
Jenny Dearborn discussed how she helped developed a highly customized training program to help solve a common sales problem: inconsistent messaging among the sales team. The program required each member of the sales team to watch a video, read a script, and post on a whiteboard their solution presentation before recording their own presentations. Each presentation was then uploaded, and product managers listened and graded the each one with a pass/fail system. The incentive to pass this test was that the rep could not go on a call for a deal on that product until they passed their presentation test. The result was a 98 percent improvement in win rates for reps that passed the presentation test.
Maria Leggett observed that in the telesales environment, sales training programs must be designed to provide information in the “moment of need.” You need to know the focus of the call, whether it is improving customer satisfaction or trying to ensure first call resolution, and have access to the right information or training at your fingertips.
Part 2 will summarize what the panel had to say about spaced learning, reinforcement, and measurement.
This post is reprinted from the Sales Readiness Sales Group blog.
