Sales leaders have a vested interest in how well their sales
teams are doing. They care enormously about the success or failure of their
reps and if the team as a whole hits their number.
But when it comes to sales training, they often don’t
approach the problem in a way that will truly help their team to increase
revenues, improve margins, shrink sales cycles or advance win rates.
How does this happen?
·
It all starts with someone believing (correctly
or incorrectly) that the current level of sales skills, competencies, knowledge
or behaviors is insufficient to succeed.
·
Then they, or their sales training or enablement
specialist, look for proven sales training options to close the perceived skill
gaps in areas such as diagnosing, listening, opening calls, negotiating,
presenting, recommending, qualifying, positioning, calling high, etc.
·
Then before you know it, solution selling
training programs are being rolled out across sales and support teams based
upon well-intentioned design interviews to customize the tools, case studies,
job aids, resources and approaches to your unique selling environment.
Unfortunately, that is how the majority of sales training
programs are sold, designed and delivered.
While this makes sense for sales training providers, it does not make
much sense for sales leaders tasked with hitting ever-increasing sales
targets. Based upon measuring over 800
training projects, we know that training by itself changes the behavior of only
1-in-5 participants. So while it sounds
helpful, isolated sales training is not the right recipe to impact the
business.
How to change the odds?
The short answer is to approach it like a change initiative,
not a training event, by:
1.
Identifying
the Metrics to Move™: Identify the critical few leading
and lagging sales metrics that you want to move that are aligned with your
business strategy and organizational culture (i.e. Revenue, Margin, Win Rate,
Deal Size, Portfolio Mix, Sales Cycle, Forecast Accuracy, Market Growth Rate,
Market Share or Brand Equity).
2.
Calculating
the Value of Moving Each Metric: Establish, for each sales metric, the current
baseline and future desired targets.
Then calculate the value of closing the gap. (For example, our average
win-rate is 40% and we want it to be 55%.
This 15% boost equates to an additional $10m in revenue).
3.
Pinpointing
the Money-Making Sales Scenarios and Skills that Matter Most: Identify the
critical few customer-based sales scenarios and money-making skills that have
the biggest impact on improving your target sales metrics. Then identify the key gaps that matter most.
4.
Building
a Sales Game Plan and Playbook: Create a winning game plan and sales playbook
for each scenario based upon what high performance looks like for each
situation.
5.
Designing
and Delivering Scenario-Based Training: Use an experiential and
action-based learning approach to fill the key skill and knowledge gaps in
combination with one-on-one sales performance coaching, compensation and
performance management programs that encourage the “right” behaviors and improved
and aligned structures, systems and processes.
6.
Measuring
Adoption and Impact: Drive accountability for execution by:
·
Measuring Adoption: Are people using the new
knowledge, skills and processes? Are managers
involved, supportive, and reinforcing?
·
Calculating Impact: Is it making a difference? Correlate adoption levels of high and low
adopters to the metric you are trying to move.
·
Providing Coaching: What should people do
differently? Provide targeted individual
feedback for coaching that is simple, relevant and actionable.
Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/solution-selling-training/
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