Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction 3
The Big Six 4
Pitfall 1 Focusing on the What vs. the Why 5
Pitfall 2 Investing More in What Happens IN the Workshop
than AFTER the Workshop 9
Pitfall 3 Measuring Post Training Behaviors Rather Than Outcomes 11
Pitfall 4 Believing its a Front Line Problem 13
Pitfall 5 Throwing in Everything but the Kitchen Sink 14
Pitfall 6 Implementing a Sales Program 15
Assess Your Program 16
About The Author 17
About ASLAN/Contact Information 17
Often those who are behind the change initiative (very often senior leadership) are so connected to
the problem that they rush, or skip altogether, the steps required to get the troops on board. if
you are concerned that engaging the learning will be a challenge, consider the four Ps to ensuring
participants will embrace the need to change.
[2] PRINCIPLES
[2]
The second P for ensuring you address the If you define and gain agreement to the
WHY to change, is identifying the principles guiding principles for each core
that support every pillar of the program. competency or methodology to be learned,
you ensure that the recommended
There are fundamental laws at work for every approach will be embraced. By effectively
effective approach to selling. Whether you are establishing the first building block for all
trying to improve response rates to emails or concepts to rest on, you establish a sound
creating receptivity to a presentation, there are platform for learning. every time you offer
principles that, if understood, remove the an alternative approach to selling or you
mystery as to why one approach may fail and see participants return to bad habits
others succeed. and what makes principles during and exercise, youre able to return
so powerful in learning, is that we intuitively to the established principle. The principle
realize the truth. that was embraced 30 minutes prior
becomes your strongest advocate for
We are all customers. We have all been on the change.
receiving end of a message designed to
influence our behavior. We know what works. So As you think about the content in your
when our behavior is distilled down into a program, have the fundamental principles
principle, the complicated gets simple and we been defined for:
break out of our memorized and stagnant way of Building the relationship?
doing things. once understood, these principles The sales process?
provide a framework to guide hundreds of How you engage a new prospect?
decisions. So how does this help participants
embrace the need to change? Discovering needs?
Building value or advancing the
opportunity?
Negotiating and responding to
resistance?
[3] PROBLEM-BASED
LEARNING
[3] The Four Ps
So what is the process? What do most organizations miss in creating their sustainment plan? They
lack a plan to ensure that managers are equipped to drive change a process that holds sales
leaders accountable to develop the competency to lead and coach and the discipline to follow the
process. At ASLAN, we address this through certification.
MANAGER CERTIFICATION
Significant change happens one-to-one, not in a 3. Accurately diagnose the root cause of the
workshop. Therefore MORE investment is performance gap and prescribe the most
required in developing front line managers than effective development plan to bridge the gap.
in developing reps, but all too often the reverse
is true. To ensure managers are equipped to 4. Consistently coach their reps not just talk
drive change, a certification process should be to their reps about performance or provide tips
created that holds managers accountable to: about how to improve but coach observing
reps performance in the field or on the phone.
1. Understand the terms and language of the This is THE biggest barrier in sustaining a
program. They may understand the concepts sales training initiative. If managers dont free
but if they fail to use the exact terminology, up the bandwidth to consistently observe a
confusion sets in and reinforcement is lost. rep on a call and create a development plan,
training becomes little more than a
2. Role-model the core competencies. Its not motivational session, with a few additional
enough that they understand the terms, tips added to the reps bag of tricks.
they must be able to role-model the basic
skills and strategies taught in the program.
The key is to zero in on the 5 to 8 simple The key is to break sales down into
outcomes the program (how we define competencies that can be measured by a pre-
competencies) was designed to achieve. Most defined outcome. Lets go back to the golf
sales organizations get overwhelmed or analogy. What if we broke down the short
distracted by 50+ sales behaviors the game into three competencies: chipping, sand
technique vs. the desired result. The key is to shots, and putting? Now it becomes a bit easier
define the competencies by CUSTOMER to define and measure competencies. We can
outcomes and NOT by what the rep attempted easily measure putting by number of putts per
to do (e.g., questions asked, communicated round or sand shots by how close the ball
prescribed benefits, etc.). consistently lands near the hole. It really
DOESNT matter how the golfer holds the putter
Lets consider a golf analogy. a golfers success or how by the book their stance is this is
is based on a score (similar to a reps quota) but key. If they consistently have a low number of
how do you measure the competencies golfers putts, theres no need to get bogged down in all
must possess that ultimately will determine the elements that go into successful putting.
that score? Some would say look at their short Success is determined by the outcome (i.e. the
game thats a key competency or look at ball consistently goes in the cup within an
their tee shot thats a key competency. And acceptable number of putts).
theyd be right and thats like saying look at
their prospecting thats a key sales
competency. Also right. But again, how do you
measure that competency?
It makes perfect sense to focus the initiative on those who interact with the customer and their
managers but without senior leadership buy-in, the program often gets derailed. To ensure the
transformation occurs, you need the involvement of the mid-level and top level leaders in order to:
Remove barriers to coaching. If front line The key is to ensure key leaders are invited in
managers truly dont have the bandwidth to early in the development process. Stand your
coach, senior leaders need to honestly assess ground if you encounter push back. if they dont
what needs to be removed from their plate. have the time to invest in the development of
the program, we promise you they wont have
Embrace the sales philosophy and time to lead the development process once the
methodology being promoted in training. For program is launched.
example, if you are teaching a more
consultative, long-term approach to building Secondly, be armed with case studies that
business but the senior leaders focus on a demonstrate the ROI for doing it right. Every
short term transactional approach to selling, investment requires a return and there are
guess what the reps and front line managers numerous examples of best-in-class
will do? Go right back to pushing their favorite organizations that see the payoff for making
product. The key is alignment and without it, the commitment.
the most powerful will always dictate what
actually happens in the field.
When making the huge investment to bring the sales force together for a training event, the
temptation is great to cram everything into one program and to apply the training to every possible
product, solution, and service. Dont fall for that temptation. Self-efficacy (ones belief in their ability
to reach a goal) is a critical component to learning. When you overwhelm participants with too much
information, they quickly make the decision that while change may be beneficial, its just not
possible. The key to training is not to raise the bar but to lower it, ensuring reps quickly develop
momentum in a new direction.
Here are a couple of recommendations to help ensure you calibrate the correct amount of content to
your audience:
Apply training to just one solution, product Measure the percentage of time spent in
set, or customer type. for example, avoid interactive exercises. If application of the
building your discovery models and exercises concepts taught in the program is under 50%,
around uncovering the needs for every you have too much content. The actual
solution. Instead, apply to just one specific percentage should be determined by the
solution. This is not the time to educate the availability of the managers to reinforce the
reps on all the solutions your organization program. The less management support
offers. The focus is to develop the skill. if you offered, the higher the percentage should be
try to accomplish both, you will accomplish spent on application. The more you can lean
neither. Build the skill models around one on the managers to coach and develop their
solution throughout the program. if they team, the less dependent you are on the
develop the new skill by applying to just one training event to develop new skills.
solution, they will quickly see and be able to Regardless, the time spent on application
apply it to their remaining solutions. After the should never drop below 50%.
initial training, you can develop your
reinforcement sessions applying the same
skill model to the remaining solutions. If your
sales organization is more transactional in
nature and doesnt sell solutions, then focus
on one customer type and the relevant
products associated with that unique profile.
Therefore, if you are investing in outside provide the tactical tools needed to address
curriculum, ensure that it was created for the the root cause of the performance gap. Sticking
role you have chosen to develop. If the partner with the golf analogy, if they learned how to
you are considering hasnt identified the unique have a collaborative discussion with the golfer
roles and built their library of content about how to improve their game but have no
accordingly, raise the red flag. More idea how to fix their slice, the coaching session
investigating is required. may be well received but the player will still
walk away with the same gap.
Secondly, all the conceptual models must be
linked to the specific challenges faced by the Again the core problem is in the linkage. An
participant. Time must be invested in creating effective coaching program will move beyond
the exercises, examples, and case studies, the conceptual model and provide leaders with
specific to their role. To be blunt, generic the insight to diagnose the root cause of the
content, even if its uniquely created for the role, problem and then accurately prescribe an
simply doesnt work. As stated earlier, change is effective developmental plan. Since most
hard. Most reps will not put in the additional leadership programs were created for every
effort to link the concepts to their world. The possible role, from engineers to accountants,
application must be built in from the start or the this critical step of the program is missing.
participants will walk out complaining, They Unless the content was specifically built for
just didnt understand my world and the equipping sales leaders, the linkage is candidly
investment will be lost. just not possible. and without this critical
element of the program, managers will either
Finally, generic coaching and leadership models revert back to show and tell (give me the club
that are often deployed to develop the front line Ill show you how to hit the ball) or just bail on
managers while effective at teaching coaching all together. and both paths lead to
leadership principles and a conversational guide pretty much the same results.
for conducting a coaching session, will fail to
Subject matter experts (SMEs) are heavily involved in the customization of the program.
A 90 day, self development plan has been engineered for the participants.
Measuring Success All relevant competencies are identified and defined by customer outcomes.
The behaviors (skills and knowledge) associated with each competency are cataloged.
Developmental exercises and activities are available for each of the identified
behaviors - ensuring the coach can easily create a plan to shore up the performance gap.
Mechanism is created to measure and track the reps ability to achieve these competencies.
Founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Stanfill, has focused his 17 years of experience
consulting and developing training programs for inside and field sales organizations. He is widely
recognized as a thought leader in the field of account management, acquisition and growth. Tom
has published numerous articles on the subject of selling and is a frequent speaker at the most
prestigious industry shows.
REP DEVELOPMENT Customized skill development programs for each of the 11 unique
sales roles.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT Providing the tools and programs to ensure sales leaders
transition from just measuring performance to truly driving change.
375 Northridge Rd
Why Do Most Training Initiatives Fail? Suite 485
aslantraining.com 1.866.362.6496 Atlanta, GA 30350