How to work and train smarter

How to work
and train smarter
Data-driven solutions to improve sales effectiveness
By Devra Hirshfeld
Now, more than ever, companies must maximize the effectiveness
of their sales force to gain a competitive advantage in a difficult
economic landscape. Further, in an era of budget constraints,
companies are looking to do so in the most cost-effective way
possible. Yet companies are spending huge amounts of money on
sales training. According to a 2011 survey by CSO Insights, more
than half of the 308 companies surveyed worldwide reported
that they spent $500 or more each year on training for each sales
representative1. The problem with this approach is that those
companies are not seeing a return on their investment in training. Indeed, over half of those same survey respondents admitted
that their sales representatives retained their new skills for a mere
four months. CSO analysts suggest that those estimates may be
too optimistic, suggesting that the retention rate is likely closer to
one month.
A CSO Insights study
states that more
than half of the 308
companies surveyed
worldwide reported
that they spent $500
or more each year in
training for each of
their sales representatives. The problem with
this is that those companies are not seeing
a return on their
investment in training.
www.FactorLab.com
888.958.3476
1
CSO Insights, “2011 Selling Skills Reinforcement Research Project.”
1
What accounts for this disconnect between investment
in training and improvement in performance? There are
three common mistakes companies make in implementing sales training.
• Companies often do not identify the most important training needs.
• Many companies fail to monitor sales reps’
adoption of the newly acquired skills.
• Sales leaders often fall short on proactively coaching their sales teams to reinforce and support their
skill development.
Each of these three mistakes is rooted in a common
problem: data that is either not available or never
considered at all. When one or more of these mistakes
is made, the likelihood of a measurable return on the
training investment plummets.
Solution 1: Diagnose the problem
A major reason for the lack of effectiveness of many
training programs is that companies do not pinpoint
with enough specificity the areas of training that their
sales team requires. Rather, companies choose training
programs based on a generalized sense of “important”
selling skills. To get the most benefit out of a training program, however, companies need to identify the
performance gaps between their top and bottom salespeople and develop a training plan focused on closing
that gap.
There is an objective data-driven process to identify
performance gaps: determine how well sales people
can recognize and respond to certain key customer
behaviors and compare the responses to the sales representatives’ revenue generation. The top performers,
as indicated by revenue generation, will have a greater
ability to identify and drive key customer outcomes.
This is the idea behind Beyond ROI’s proprietary PowerView™ survey tool. Users of the PowerView assessment
provide a survey to all sales representatives that determines the frequency with which the sales team is able
to achieve certain client outcomes that are indicative of
2
successful sales. For instance, sales representatives are
asked how often a client gets them involved early in the
planning and decision cycle, how often a client provides access to C-level executives and how often a client
provides insight into its larger goals and business objectives. Upon completion of the survey, a company will
have a detailed account of the strengths possessed by top
performers that must be taught to less successful sales
representatives, and those strengths will be a correlated
to key customer outcomes.
...the truest indicator of skill is focusing
on key customer behaviors. That metric
provides the strongest correlation with
revenue. This focus on customer behavior,
rather than an individual’s subjective view
of his own abilities, provides an objectively
verifiable measure.
The link between identifying customer behavior and
effective selling has been proven by Beyond ROI’s 800+
engagements with Fortune 500 companies. According to
Scott Watson, Beyond ROI’s Chief Measurement Officer,
he has consistently observed that the truest indicator of
skill is focusing on key customer behaviors. That metric
provides the strongest correlation with revenue. This
focus on customer behavior, rather than an individual’s
subjective view of his own abilities, provides an objectively verifiable measure.
Solution 2: Monitor progress
What happens after a company has implemented the
appropriate training program? Often nothing. Therein
lies one of the greatest mistakes a company can make
in the process of developing and transforming its sales
team. Indeed, the truism that one cannot manage what
one does not measure applies with training. To obtain
the most benefit from employing a training program,
companies must continue to track the performance of
each sales person to ensure that the learned skills are
being implemented, or if not, to identify with specificity
the areas of additional training or reinforcement that is
required. By gathering performance data, managers are
Effectively tracking successful application
of sales training is a function of the
granularity of the data collected.
able to proactively determine which sales representatives
need what specific help and coaching on certain deals
in order to close them. In other words, “[s]ales becomes
more of a science and less of an art, and in doing so, we
will close more deals, increase margins, and improve the
predictability of our businesses.”2
Effectively tracking successful application of sales training is a function of the granularity of the data collected.
Imagine if it were possible to gather data on a deal-specific or customer interaction-specific level. The ability
to empower proactive coaching and to pinpoint key
behaviors at every stage of a sales cycle would increase
exponentially.
Solution 3: Coach and reinforce
The third critical mistake that companies make when
implementing a training effort is failing to coach and
reinforce the newly acquired skills. Consider this: 85
percent of companies that do training reinforcement see
improvement in sales effectiveness. Further, 87 percent
Consider this: 85 percent of companies
that do training reinforcement see
improvement in sales effectiveness.
of best-in-class companies in a survey of 291 companies
reported that they had a structured process for sales
managers to communicate with sales representatives
to give feedback on performance, and 86 percent regularly reviewed performance analytics against agreed
to objectives. Similarly, Beyond ROI’s Scott Watson
has documented a 2X to 3X difference in performance
improvement based solely on the frequency and focus of
one-on-one manager coaching with reps.
The importance of coaching to ensure improvement
in performance highlights the need for specific performance data. Indeed, in this economy managers are
stretched thin and the ratio of sales reps to manager
increasing. Consequently, it is imperative to do whatever
possible to support and enable managers in providing
proactive coaching.
Making these data-driven solutions real
The three solutions described are powerful in their effectiveness and reach in sales organizations. But they are
powerful when the right data is available on-demand, is
deal- or even stage-specific, and is real-time. Traditional
SFA and CRM solutions fall short in their ability to
deliver this kind of high-quality, coachable, detailed
data. A new breed of customer-behavior based data is
emerging that meets the timely, on-demand, granular
information requirements necessary to support these
sales effectiveness solutions. Two such solution providers are Beyond ROI and FactorLab. Beyond ROI quickly
provides the customer behavior diagnostics and analytics necessary to focus organizations’ sales training
efforts. FactorLab helps sales organizations identify,
capture, and act on verifiable customer behaviors to:
(1) support engagement with and regular application of
organization’s chosen sales methodology, and (2) focus
coaching for further developing sales reps’ skills, based
on deal-specific customer behavior insights. FactorLab’s
technology seamlessly integrates with CRM systems for
intuitive, fast application in the field.
Jim Dickie and Barry Trailor, CSO Insights, “World Class Sales Management: Closing What You Forecast” (2011).
CSO Insights, “2011 Selling Skills Reinforcement Research Project.”
4
Aberdeen Group, Peter Ostrow, “Sale Performance Management 2012—How the Best-in-Class Optimize the Front Line to Grow the Bottom Line”
(December 2011).
2
3
3
Conclusion
Improving sales effectiveness has become one of the
most pressing priorities of organizations in this economic climate. While many look to training to do so,
they regularly make three fundamental errors. To ensure
that they obtain the maximum benefit from often costly
training, sales organizations are wise to adopt three
data-driven sales training and reinforcement solutions.
First, companies must identify the gaps in performance
between low and high performers and direct the training program to fill in the gap. To make this assessment,
companies must look to sales representatives’ abilities to
recognize key customer behaviors—the singularly reliable metric of sales effectiveness. Second, after diagnosing and treating the specific problems of low performers, a company must gather real-time data regarding the
post-training performance of its sales force to empower
sales managers to proactively coach the team. Finally,
sales managers must regularly engage, reinforce and
coach. By doing these three things, a company can
ensure that their team obtains—and retains—the core
skills necessary to compete and succeed. In short, companies can train and work smarter.
About the Author: Devra Hirshfeld is an attorney
and freelance writer. She is currently in-house counsel at Kixeye, Inc. She is a frequent blog contributor to
Above the Law (www.abovethelaw.com). Previously,
she worked for SCIEnergy in both legal and marketing
capacities, and she has litigated for Novack and Macey
and Mayer Brown.
This White Paper provided
by FactorLab
FactorLab works with your existing CRM,
sales process language and methodology,
saving your reps time while helping managers coach to the customer behaviors that
drive pipeline velocity and close business.
GrowTM, our flagship product, helps companies sell more with the resources they have
today by paying attention to the things
that matter most. Accurately record customer behaviors, velocity and account history
in seconds, with easy to read reports that
help you focus exactly where each account
needs attention to move forward.
To learn more or get a demo, please contact us
FactorLab, Inc. www.FactorLab.com 888.958.3476
contact@FactorLab.com
PowerView is a trademark of Beyond ROI.
FactorLab ©2012.
4