T
he best sales force learning and development (L&D) programs make salespeople continually successful as they acquire and improve the skills and knowledge that they need. Top sales organizations view such programs as being broader than the structured, classroom-focused group sessions that were once the foundation of many sales training programs. Today, successful programs embrace a broader paradigm, in which learning means that salespeople improve their skills and deepen their knowledge, and development reflects the con-tinuous accumulation of capabilities that increases a person’s value to the organization and helps companies retain employees motivated by learning and growing.In designing good L&D programs, sales leaders face three critical challenges. First, there are numerous choices about whom to train, what the training should impart, and how to train. How can a sales organiza-tion design a program that is effective and that really works? Second, in a rapidly changing world, there is a continuous need for learning. How can a sales organization design an efficient program that does not nibble away at the time salespeople spend taking care of customers? Third, the
impact of training is enhanced through reinforcement. More than 80 per-cent of what salespeople learn in classroom training programs is soon forgotten. How can a sales organization link its L&D programs with complementary sales effectiveness drivers such as information support, coaching, and performance management? The sales manager plays an important role in this process, acting as a coach to reinforce the skills and knowledge that salespeople acquire and providing guidance concerning what L&D opportunities they should seek out.
An L&D Success Framework
What Should Influence the Design of Your L&D Program?
The competencies that your salespeople need if they are to execute your sales strategy and the degree to which these competencies are part of your company’s sales force recruiting strategy should be the primary influences on the design of your L&D program. Design includes the content and the methods by which that content is delivered. Figure 8-1 illustrates the framework for such a design.
Competencies That Salespeople Need if They Are to Execute a Sales Strategy. Companies with complex and diverse product lines, cus-tomers, and/or sales processes need to invest more in L&D programs than companies for which selling is simpler. In addition, an environment in which customer needs, the offerings of competitors, and company sales strategies are evolving requires greater investment in sales force
Sales Force Recruiting
Strategy
Learning and Development Program Design
•Content
•Methods Sales
Strategy Sales Force Competencies Environment
Customers Competitors
Company Offering and
Strategy
Figure 8-1. A framework for L&D program design
L&D programs than does a more stable environment. Major events like new product launches, environmental shifts, and mergers and acquisi-tions will often create a need for sales strategy changes that require the sales force to acquire new skills and knowledge. In addition, gradual changes in market consolidation, customer buying processes, or the eco-nomic outlook can also drive selling process changes that require this. In recent years, many companies have changed sales processes that were product- and relationship-based to processes that are focused on solu-tions and on providing more value to customers, and implementing those changes has required the rethinking of sales force L&D programs.
New Product Training at Cisco
At the height of the Internet boom, computer networking giant Cisco Sys-tems acquired a new company roughly every three weeks. This meant that new products were constantly being added to the portfolio of Cisco’s sales force—a difficult challenge in a complex industry where hundreds of new products are introduced every year. Cisco prided itself on having a well-trained sales force, but flying salespeople to a central location for training every time a new product was introduced soon became impractical. To help salespeople learn about newly acquired products quickly, the firm developed an online portal that gave salespeople access to thousands of training mod-ules that they could view on screen, download to a computer, or print in mag-azine format. Salespeople could quickly familiarize themselves with new products without losing too much valuable time in the field. In addition to increasing selling effectiveness, the new system cut training-associated travel by 60 percent.
Making the Transition to Consultative Selling at Aetna
In the competitive insurance industry, health-care insurance provider Aetna recognized that strong customer relationships and ongoing customer loy-alty were critical to its enduring success. In an effort to strengthen its rela-tionships with corporate customers, Aetna developed an L&D program to
help its salespeople who sell to businesses become more consultative in their sales approach. Since businesses with different profiles need different plans for the coverage they offer employees, Aetna salespeople could be more effective if they talked with customers about their specific health-care insurance needs instead of making product-based pitches. Aetna sales-people learned how to research and analyze each customer’s business issues and how to develop and give a sales presentation that was cus-tomized to the client’s needs and business style. They learned the value of focusing selling on “you” (the customer’s needs) rather than on “me” (my products). While the consultative sales training did lead to some immediate bottom-line successes, the ultimate goal was to improve customer reten-tion and long-term growth.
Sales Force Recruiting Strategies. Some established selling organiza-tions—including Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, and Xerox—mainly hire recent college graduates for their sales posi-tions. They invest heavily in L&D programs, which they view as a cor-porate asset that generates a competitive advantage. Other companies hire only people with sales experience who can hit the ground running.
Most companies use some combination of these two approaches.
Larger companies are more likely to hire inexperienced salespeo-ple, as they have the resources to build internal sales training depart-ments and to provide the mentoring needed to develop new salespeople. Growing companies are more likely to rely on hiring expe-rienced people. (See Chapter 7 for a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of hiring experienced versus inexperienced salespeople in different sales environments.)
But L&D programs for newly hired salespeople are important for all sales organizations. As Figure 8-2 shows, all new hires, regardless of their experience, need to be educated about the company’s products, processes, and culture. People with no prior experience require addi-tional L&D programs covering a broad spectrum of customer and mar-ket knowledge, the sales process, and sales skills. The content of training can be customized to the specific needs of new hires who have some customer/market or selling experience.
Selling Skills Training at Xerox
Xerox Corporation is widely recognized as a pioneer in sales training. During the 1960s, the company developed its Professional Selling Skills (PSS) sales training approach to educate its sales force. Soon it began packaging this approach and selling it to other companies, eventually spinning off the train-ing unit into a separate company. The Xerox PSS approach included a five-step selling skills program that taught salespeople basic skills, such as how to open a sales call, listen effectively, handle objections, close sales, and fol-low up after a sale. Elements of the PSS approach are still used in many sales training programs, although there is usually less emphasis on persua-sion and greater emphasis on listening and two-way communication.
A Biotechnology Firm’s Hiring Strategy Influences Its L&D Program Design
When a biotechnology company was ready to launch its first product, the management team wanted to hire only the best pharmaceutical salespeople for its sales force. The company’s profile of an ideal candidate was a phar-maceutical salesperson with five or more years of experience, a life science degree, in-depth territory knowledge, and a performance ranking in the top
Sales Process and Sales Skills;
Company Products and
Culture
No Yes
Customer/Market Experience Selling Experience No Yes
Customers and Markets;
Company Products and
Culture
Customers and Markets;
Sales Process and Sales Skills;
Company Products and
Culture
Company Products and
Culture
Figure 8-2. L&D program content for newly hired salespeople
20 percent in his current position. The company set its pay levels at 30 per-cent above the industry norm. Since all new hires were familiar with pharma-ceutical sales processes and markets, the initial sales force training focused on the company’s products and culture. In addition, salespeople were asked to join task forces charged with designing many of the sales effectiveness drivers, such as incentive compensation plans, performance management processes, and sales information systems. The combined prior experience of the task force members cut across many different pharmaceutical compa-nies, enabling the firm to determine and adopt best practices for the sales effectiveness drivers.
What Content Should Your L&D Program Deliver?
Smart sales leaders build L&D program content around the skills and knowledge that salespeople need if they are to be successful with cus-tomers. In any sales organization, the best salespeople are skilled at devel-oping an understanding of their customers’ needs and creating customer value by customizing the company’s offering to meet those needs.
The specific content of your L&D program will depend on the com-plexity of your sales process. If your process is relatively simple, your salespeople need product and customer knowledge and the basic selling skills necessary to be effective. If it is complex, your salespeople will also need highly developed consultative skills in order to be successful.
When the Sales Process Is Simple.In order to be effective with cus-tomers, salespeople need some basic skills and knowledge:
• An understanding of the selling process. Salespeople need profi-ciency in executing each step in the selling process effectively. The classic Xerox sales training approach breaks down selling skills into five parts: opening a call, listening, handling objections, closing, and following up after the sale.
• Product and company knowledge.Salespeople need to understand the features and benefits of the products and services that they sell.
They must know their company’s policies and resources for helping customers.
• Market and customer knowledge.Salespeople need to know the mar-ket and the nature of competitors’ offerings. They must understand their customers, including how they will use the product or service, the value they perceive, and how their purchasing decisions are made.
• Territory management skills.Salespeople must learn how to manage their time and prioritize the customers to target, the products to sell, and the activities to engage in.
Figure 8-3 lists examples of the proficiencies needed for sales suc-cess. Sales leaders need to provide programs focused on these skills and knowledge whenever new salespeople join the company, or when changes in the environment or in company strategies require existing salespeople to expand their skill set and knowledge base.
Sales Training at Home Depot
Appliance salespeople at Home Depot go through extensive training to develop the competencies needed to be successful at selling all the major appliance categories. The training program combines self-paced materials, video-based courses, online assessments, and instructor-led training to help salespeople become familiar with all the products available in store show-rooms. The courses also teach such important selling skills as:
• Following Home Depot selling strategies
• Recommending the right appliances based on the customers’ needs
• Emphasizing the appropriate product features and benefits
• Addressing customers’ questions
• Closing a sale
Knowledge
•Products
•Company
•Customers
•Competition
Sales Skills
•Face-to-face selling
•Selling process execution
Other
•Time and territory management
•Administrative procedures
•Company culture
Figure 8-3. Examples of selling competencies needed for almost all sales processes
CIGNA Hires and Trains a New Sales Force to Pursue Middle-Market Accounts
In the late 1990s, CIGNA Group Insurance sold its products primarily to large companies with more than 10,000 employees. In 2001, CIGNA determined that the best opportunity for substantial, sustained growth was in middle-market accounts. Since the CIGNA sales force had few strong relationships with middle-market brokers and midsize companies, CIGNA set out to hire and develop a new sales force to seize a competitive share of this $9 billion market. Using a new hiring profile for salespeople who could be successful at selling in a fast-paced, high-volume environment, the company identified, screened, and hired a distinct group of successful sales professionals from outside the insurance industry who had diverse business experience and were comfortable selling high volumes of business to midsize companies. To develop the new salespeople, CIGNA created a program that it called Busi-ness Leadership and Sales Training (BLAST). Most of the new hires were competent salespeople but had little or no insurance industry experience, so the program emphasized product and industry information, in addition to selling skills. BLAST included classroom sessions that covered telephone prospecting, influencing skills, territory management, in-depth product infor-mation, and business and customer knowledge. Classroom learning was supplemented with structured field experience, self-study, and real-time case scenarios. Skills developed through BLAST were reinforced through dedicated, one-on-one coaching with sales managers.
When the Sales Process Is Complex. As product and service lines become complex and broad, or as companies seek ways to bring more value to customers, many sales organizations adopt a consultative model of value-based selling. A consultative selling model requires salespeople to have a range of skills and knowledge that goes beyond basic selling skills and strong product knowledge. Consultative sales-people also need to have an extensive understanding of a customer’s business issues so that they can creatively develop value-based solu-tions. Companies need enhanced approaches to sales force L&D in order to impart such competencies, listed in Figure 8-4.
IBM Trains Sony on Consultative Selling
In response to massive changes in its markets, Sony Broadcast & Profes-sional Europe wanted to strengthen its relationships with customers by becoming more than a supplier of products. The company’s long-term vision was to be seen by its customers as a provider of strategic, complex commu-nications solutions. To achieve this vision, Sony needed to adopt a more consultative sales approach. Enlisting the help of IBM sales trainers, Sony customized a consultative sales L&D program to teach salespeople how to build closer ties with clients by working jointly with them to solve problems.
The program focused on specific competencies (such as communication skills), but its overall goal was to get Sony salespeople to think, act, and work as consultants with their customers. The training included many case stud-ies and role-playing exercises centered on customers’ business problems.
Comdata Uses a Creative Training Approach to Teach Salespeople to Sell Value
When the sales force at financial services company Comdata was asked to launch a new product into a market where it had little experience, sales lead-ers realized that the salespeople would be more effective if they could learn to think like the CEOs who were their potential buyers. Once they understood the strategies and situations that these CEOs face, salespeople would be
Knowledge
•Product offering and value proposition
•How to identify the key players or key decision makers
•How to assess needs
•Customer’s decision process map
•How to tailor the offering and value proposition
•How to pursue large deals
•Negotiation
Other
•How company resources can map to customer needs
•Account management
•How to prospect to build and maintain a good sales pipeline
•Forecasting
Figure 8-4. Examples of selling competencies needed for complex sales processes
able to better communicate how Comdata’s products and services related to customer success and thus could sell more effectively. As part of its L&D program, Comdata used a board game called Zodiak, designed by Paradigm Learning, to teach its salespeople to think like CEOs. As they played the game, salespeople made decisions about strategic business investments across three years in the life of a customer’s business, saw the impact of these decisions on the bottom line, and came to understand how the prod-ucts they sold could solve the problems that CEOs encounter. This made them more effective at selling value.
Computer Companies Help Channel Partners’ Transition to Solution Selling
Computer companies like Microsoft, Symantec, Cisco Systems, Veritas Soft-ware, and Intel rely on channel partners (such as value-added resellers) to sell to small and middle-market accounts. All these companies encourage their channel partners, which have traditionally sold individual technology products, to use a consultative approach that focuses on end-to-end solu-tions and business applicasolu-tions. Veritas reorganized the sales training it pro-vides to channel partners by supplementing product-specific information with training organized around such business problems as regulatory com-pliance and disaster-recovery planning—key issues for small businesses.
Microsoft has developed a Partner Learning Center web site where its part-ners can find unique training programs that help their salespeople under-stand the complexity and diverse nature of business software solutions.
The development of consultative selling competencies is particu-larly important for salespeople who are responsible for selling to large, complex “key” accounts that are of significant strategic importance to the company. Such accounts often have centralized purchasing, multilo-cation purchasing influences, a complex buying process, and a need for special services. L&D for sales success with key accounts typically focuses on developing competencies that allow salespeople to take a strategic approach to account management and customer relationships.
Training for Successful Key Account Selling
Many sales training companies offer courses in selling to key accounts.
Examples of popular courses include Huthwaite’s SPIN Selling, Miller-Heiman’s Strategic Selling, the TAS Group’s Target Account Selling, and Sales Performance International’s Solution Selling. Many leading universities and professional associations offer similar courses. Some of the topics cov-ered in a sample of key account development courses are:
• Strategic Account Management, offered by University of Michigan Ross School of Business Executive Education. “Develop and imple-ment strategic account plans . . . understand key account business drivers . . . improve your firm’s relationships, and therefore profitability, with strategic accounts . . . create and achieve cross functional sup-port in acquiring and growing strategic accounts.”
• Selling to Major Accounts: A Strategic Approach, offered by the Amer-ican Management Association. “Learn to think strategically and differ-entiate between strategy and tactics . . . manage the selling process more effectively . . . define results indicators to improve the sales process . . . identify opportunities with high return for time, effort, and money invested . . . spread your risk by managing the pipeline . . . manage account performance strategically.”
• SAMA University: Critical Skills for the Strategic Account Manager, offered by the Strategic Account Management Association. “Key learnings include competitive positioning . . . crafting opportunity value propositions . . . gaining entry . . . political alignment . . . rela-tionship profiling . . . selecting account strategy . . . setting achievable revenue targets.”
Developing Effective L&D Program Content.
Structure L&D program content around critical sales force
Structure L&D program content around critical sales force