Designing Sales Training: Methodological Agnosticism

Sound weird, doesn’t it? Truth is . . .  being tied to one training methodology simply isn’t productive.
There’s no “perfect training methodology” – whether it be focused on selling, managing or coaching. Any training should  Advance Competence while Advancing Sales. Complex sales organizations need methodological purpose rather than one methodology piled on top of existing methodologies.
Additionally, people have been trained a lot in their lives. It seems obvious that we should also give them credit for the concepts, processes, and skills they have already learned. Adding methodologies (no matter how good they are) risks creating indifference. We know indifference does not change behaviors! Conversely, building commitment relies on giving your people and managers credit for what they already know, while at the same time changing behaviors that do not work.

So How about: . .

• How about working with what your people have?
• How about delivering specific learning at the time of greatest need?
• How about focusing on advancing sales rather than installing a methodology?
• How about treating learners as adults and help them solve real problems?
• Using any necessary forms to advance sales and competence simultaneously?

So, sales and sales manager coaching must be integrated. For instance, one client was committed to “Blue Sheets” but did not use them to leverage value discussions in client account reviews. When this behavioral deficiency was targeted as a “coaching item,” blue sheets instantly became more useful! Using a similar approach, we increased the value of the “Fox Guides™” by helping users find those sections that drove “power questioning” in sales calls.
Simply expressed, organizations need to “make hay” with planning tools their sales people already call their own!This makes economic and “good learning” sense!”
Here’s some things to consider:

Strategic Alignment

Sales Manager coaching needs to focus on integrating your sales and marketing strategy. For example, in one of our account, coaching training reflected a strong tie to “Customer Value Creation Strategy.” Coaching was a central issue in reaching sales goals. A common integration theme was how well coaching outcomes aligned with the Business Dashboard.

Definition: A data visualization tool that displays the current status of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) for an enterprise. Dashboards consolidate and arrange numbers, metrics and sometimes performance scorecards on a single screen. They may be tailored for a specific role and display metrics targeted for a single point of view (Wikipedia)

“Feeding the Bear”

Many Sales executives REQUIRE sales data. To this expectation, the sales organization needs to “Feed the Bear.”
Management wants sales progress reporting through defined sales processes. Ensuring that the training language used is consistent with sales reporting is a real integration challenge, and often overlooked. Likewise, tools used in the training need to be aligned so that they DO “Feed the Bear,” But at the same time help the sales rep to understand the client condition and next steps.

Human Resources Alignment

As do many of our clients, you may experience cloudy or inconsistent links between sales, sales coaching and management competencies. Other common alignment issues to consider, especially for sales manager coaching training, are:
· Create Performance Management processes for both sales managers and their people – e.g., ensuring that one training outcome for managers is to create related performance
objectives with their direct reports
· How managers’ training will be reinforced so that their coaching produces measurable results
· Using existing sale and behavioral  baseline data against which the impact of the training can be measured.

Develop Evaluation Strategies

Lastly, your challenge is understanding the need to link “coaching skills training” events to:

• How the competencies of sales people and sales manager’s are measured
• Where existing sales processes and protocols require measurable tactical behaviors
• How the training reflects customer value and satisfaction measures in specific sales manager coaching behaviors
• How current outcome metrics relate to the behaviors being trained
• How specific coaching develops better product clustering or improved new product introduction strategies

Suffice it to say that PDS is “methodologically agnostic” which means we take your methodologies and help you recapture your investment in them, fix them if they are not working, or add to them if needed. This way, we reduce training costs while improving sales results.
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Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the  first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us?  The first call is free!  Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get PDS working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more,
we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

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