Making Sales Coaching a Team Effort

Shankar Ganapathy on January 27, 2017

make_sales_coaching-team-effortNo athlete is perfect. Each has their own unique skills and areas that they can improve upon, that’s why even elite athletes need a team behind them. Usain Bolt is the fastest person alive but in the lead, up to the Rio Olympics (where he won his ninth Olympic gold medal), he credited his team led by coach Glen Mills as the strength behind his success.

Mills has never been an elite athlete. He’s a

career coach

, one who has learnt the ropes from the ground up and trained in aspects of anatomy, agility, coordination and even talent identification to become the best in the business. Running may be an individual sport, but Bolt’s success is thanks to a team of experts from doctors to nutritionists to Mills, who all put his needs front and center.

 usain-bolt_coach

Focus in on the target

Sales is no different. While achieving quota is up to the individual rep their success is a team effort. For each team, the focal point of their efforts starts and ends with the needs of the sales rep.
sales-rep-manager-enablement

In order to stay on top of their game reps require sales coaching on three areas:
sales-reps-coaching

The mix of each of these disciplines that a rep requires will depend on a range of factors such as their industry, product and skill level. Each business will need to determine what is the appropriate blend of weighting that each need for their business. This then forms the basis for your sales coaching program. By structuring your coaching program you can take the risk out of your revenue forecasts. Research from The

Corporate Executive Board Company

showed that reps who received as little as three hours of coaching a month exceeding goals by 7%, boosted revenue by 25% and increased their average close rate by 70%. Without a structured program in place, your sales organization is leaving your revenue in the hands of fate.

Success is a team effort

While the manager plays an integral role in coaching a sales rep to success, they are not the only person involved in the process. Sales enablement and capability, sales coaches, leadership and product teams are becoming increasingly involved in the coaching process. Some actually take on the role of coach in some areas, while others help enable the sales manager so they can coach more effectively. Each and every role in the coaching process is important.

For example for some organizations their sales coaching framework looks like this:
sales-coaching-team

With the roles of each stakeholder defined within the coaching framework, your subject matter experts have clear expectations of what they need to do. This also surrounds sales reps with a team who are all there to help them achieve success.

Having everyone on board is an important step towards creating a culture of coaching. To ensure the culture is entrenched it’s also necessary for coaches to be accountable.

Scott Erdinger

suggests some useful ways to reinforce the culture of coaching like establishing uniform expectations across every member of the team from the VP Sales down. This ensures both giving and receiving coaching is role-modeled by all. Highlighting those you are achieving is also effective, but the key here is not to just mention who they are but to also share what they did. This again helps role-model behavior and imparts knowledge to other reps. Finally, he suggests a carrot and sticks approach to accountability, where those who engage in the coaching process are rewarded and those who opt-out face consequences.

The mix of activities that are appropriate will depend on the nature of your team, its members and how entrenched sales coaching is in your organization. Like anything worth doing, coaching requires hard work, but the potential benefits to your team and topline are endless.

In Conversation with Avalara on Sales Enablement

Abhinav Guru on December 5, 2016

 

Avalara sales enablementThis post is based on a podcast on Avalara’s five levels of sales certification. You can listen to the entire podcast

here

.

Avalara is the leading provider of sales tax compliance technology. The company has been growing aggressively, achieving an average growth each year of between 40% and 60%. Its sales team has become increasingly complex as it has grown; 325 salespeople are located across the 3 major offices in the US, internationally in Europe and Asia, and with some remote roles working from home offices across the country.

There are five distinct sales roles within the sales team that each have their own unique challenges.  The diversity of the team adds to the complexity of their sales enablement requirements.

According to Chuck Marcouiller, Director of Sales Learning,

“Avalara aspires to have the most successfully, highly skilled sales force in the software as a service technology sector. For us sales excellence really is having a marketplace leading highly capable sales force, creating customers at a rate that meets or exceeds our growth plan. For us, sales enablement is providing the training and tools that meet the salesforce’ needs to meet the needs of our customers and adapt to the ever-changing marketplace dynamic.”

Avalara faced three challenges when enabling its sales teams

When Marcouiller first started the business two years ago he was faced with several challenges.

The onboarding program was inadequate

The onboarding program was originally just a week-long course. It was conducted in person and supplemented with periodic webinars. This was not sufficient to convey the necessary knowledge, engage the sales team and ensure that they remembered and could apply the messages.a

Building progressive sales skills

The business has identified different core competencies that they required from their sales team. These include marketplace skills, business acumen, sales skills, product skills and knowledge of their sales tools. Avalara’s challenge was finding a way to progress their new hires through the different levels of competency so that they could become capable and consistent sales performers.

Creating consistent messages across multiple sales teams

Managing five different sales forces with different skill sets and needs is challenging. But the key enablement issue is making sure that each team had the same look and feel from a customer perspective. This consistent messaging was considered essential to the business’ success.

The technology was key to solving Avalara’s challenges

Avalara implemented several initiatives to achieve its goals.

Use technology to engage the team in learning

“One of the first things that I knew that I had to implement two years ago was a sales enablement platform or a technology tool that would allow us to efficiently capture and deliver learnings in bite sized nuggets, meaning somewhere between a YouTube video and a Ted talk. Because great sales people are, I’ve found over time and include myself in this, are attention deficit children. You got to keep it short, sweet and focused otherwise we’re going to lose interest,”

reflects Marcouiller.

With these requirements in mind, Avalara chose Mindtickle for its ease of use and ability to deliver updates and information in quick and easily digestible formats, including audio and video.

“It’s far more efficient to have an online video that people can use to learn the base concepts then to run small classes that meet everyone’s schedule. Humans are the most expensive component and we adopted a phrase of “record once, learn many times to then only get a chance to sit in front of a live instructor,”

explains Marcouiller.

Implement five levels of competencies

The next step was to implement a learning program that met their needs, progressing sales people through Avalara’s competencies.

“We’ve developed 5 levels to certification,”

explains Marcouiller.

“The first level is when something is brand new the most efficient way to teach someone or help share information to someone is through a recording. Because we learned from study after study if you make a learning module somewhere between a YouTube video and Ted talk people will sit down and learn when they have the ability to learn, and it’s a great way to get the information out. If they want to refresh they can go back and hear the recording at any time.”

This is delivered to sales reps on their mobile devices via the Mindtickle app.

“The second level is after you put the sales enablement course out there, you have to have a test to make sure that they learned and were actually paying attention to the course and they got the key learning objectives,”

explains Marcouiller. He chose Mindtickle because of its ability to conduct tests online that reinforce the key learning objectives of the course.

Only once the test is passed is a rep considered ready for live instruction. “

Because sales is a contact sport we want to make sure that our sales people can take the learnings, be it the product or sales skill, and actually execute it and use it. So what we wanted to do was have an online testing tool. In order to be able to test this process and make sure we could listen to their talk track, see their demos, listen to their ability to handle objections, and then have them rehearse that and then evaluate that,”

he continues.

Mindtickle was chosen for its role play capability so reps could demonstrate their demos and objection handling. Detailed analytics allows the sales enablement team to identify which reps are competent with the material and whether any are struggling with some parts of the course and require additional time or support.

Once an individual has passed this phase they’re ready to do a live role-play in front of their manager. Once they’ve passed this stage they’re ready for the final stage and are certified to sell. This process has ensured the consistency of their sales team

Avalara is a leader in leveraging sales enablement for its competitive advantage

By leveraging technology for its sales enablement initiatives Avalara now has an onboarding program that engages its new hires while bringing them up to the requisite level of baseline knowledge quickly.

Each member of their sales team also has a clear path to progress their learning and management has an objective method of determining when an individual is ready to sell thanks to their five-level certification program.

Finally, everyone sings from the same song sheet at Avalara, regardless of the product or customer they are selling to. This means they portray a consistent and robust message to customers and prospects, clearly articulating the value of their product.

ForeScout Combines Technology & Role Play for Successful Sales Onboarding [Podcast, Part 3]

Abhinav Guru on December 5, 2016

In this 7-minute

interview Capovilla outlines:

  • How ForeScout’s 30 – 60 – 90-day onboarding program is structured;
  • What the pitch back is and how it’s used to keep new hires on track;
  • Her advice to new sales enablement directors on how to build an onboarding program from scratch; and
  • How ForeScout has leveraged technology in its onboarding.

To download or subscribe to the Sales Excellence podcast login to

Soundcloud

,

Stitcher

,

iTunes

or find it

here

.

forescout sales onboarding“

The best way to learn is to have the trainees apply concepts to real deals so we have them do teach back concepts. We do a lot  of these role plays where the trainees have to present what they’ve learned to their peers and it’s through that collaboration that the learning really starts happening.”

Renee Capovilla, Director of Sales Enablement at ForeScout, is reflecting back on what has been critical to ramp up their new sales hires quickly.  “Our goal is to really pack those first 90 days with a lot of learning and effective training and then get them out into their territory. But it’s about month six to nine that they start hitting their productivity targets.”

Ramping up new sales hires so quickly is no mean feat and Capovilla puts it down to a combination of effective learning and smart use of technology. “You want to know how they are using [their learning] on a sales call and the only way you’re going to know that is if they tell you. So the pitch back is so important for us, to hear what they are going to say when they get to the customer, a great way to reinforce the learning through listening,” she says explaining the importance of online role plays.

When prompted to explain her secret to success she offered humbly, “I think what I might have as an advantage is the fact that I enabled the technology sooner rather than later. Don’t feel intimidated to add technology early on, because it won’t just help with the cycle time.”

How ForeScout Achieved Sales Delivering a Consistent Pitch [ Podcast, Part 2]

Abhinav Guru on December 5, 2016

In this 5-minute

interview Capovilla outlines:

  • What their 30 – 3 – 30 corporate pitches are;
  • What is covered in ForeScout’s corporate pitch certification program; and
  • How their scorecard works to ensure all their new reps are on the pitch.

To download or subscribe to the Sales Excellence podcast login to

Soundcloud

,

Stitcher

,

iTunes

or find it

here

.

sales excellence forescoutAs Director of Sales Enablement at ForeScout, Renee Capovilla was set an ambitious goal. “The goal was that when asked about ForeScout and what ForeScout did –  a consistent message would come out. And so we have this corporate pitch program which serves as a framework to which we present our capabilities, our differentiators and our value to our customers.”

Capovilla not only took on the challenge but developed a company-wide corporate pitch certification program. But this isn’t just a quick elevator pitch. It’s a detailed three-part process that all sales reps are required to be certified in within their first 30 days.

“It enables that discussion around the security buyer’s challenge, we present use cases, the current infrastructure gaps that could be occurring and then we help walk the customer through how Forescout can uniquely address each one of them.

It’s really more than just a pitch. It’s taking our customers on a journey of our security platform.”
Listen now

to hear how Capovilla introduced and implemented a company-wide corporate pitch certification program.

Avalara’s 5 Levels of Sales Certification [Podcast, Episode 3]

Daniel Kuperman on August 8, 2016

In this 12-minute

interview Marcouiller outlines:

  • How Avalara transformed its enablement and onboarding program to scale
  • His five-level process for onboarding and certifying new sales hires, and
  • How Avalara has structured its five unique sales teams while maintaining the same corporate look and feel

Listen now

to hear how Marcouiller manages the challenges of scaling and enabling five leading sales teams at once.

To download or subscribe to the Sales Excellence podcast login to Soundcloud or find it here.

Sales Excellence Chuck“Sales enablement is the foundation pillar, saw sharpener and keeper of the flame.”

That’s how Chuck Marcouiller views his role as Director of Sales Learning at Avalara. With a sales force of 325 people scattered across 5 countries and numerous cities, Avalara has managed to achieve scale and maintain enviable growth rates of between 40 – 60% year on year.

“My role is to ensure that each member of the sales team has the foundational skills when they come on board, and then and as they progress they continue to sharpen their skills weekly and make sure that they stay grounded in our strong corporate culture,” explains Marcouiller. “Managing five different sales forces, each unique with their different skill sets and different needs, yet trying to get them to look and feel as if they’re one Avalara, gets to be a bit of a challenge.”

“For us sales excellence really is having a marketplace leading highly capable sales force, creating customers at a rate that meets or exceeds our growth plan. And sales enablement is providing the training and tools that meet the salesforce’ needs to meet the needs of our customers and adapt to the ever-changing marketplace dynamic.”

Maximize Channel Partner Success with Robust Onboarding and Certification

Shankar Ganapathy on June 22, 2016

Channel partner onboarding CertificationIn my previous post, I talked about how important our customers believed it was to get their channel partners set up for success quickly. Many felt that ramping up their partner’s reps to sell their product as early as possible was critical to their future success. And some found out the hard way that if it took too long for their channel partners to start closing deals, their reps simply lost interest in their product and it was then virtually impossible to get them back on track.

But those that managed to onboard and certify their channel partners early believed that it solidified their partner’s ability to sell their product with confidence, and in some instances even gave them the edge over other products in their channel partner’s suite.

The channel training continuum

Channel Training Continuum

While the depth and breadth of your onboarding and certification will vary depending on where you sit on the channel training continuum, I’ve identified three areas where our customers focused their efforts.

  1. The welcome kit
  2. Channel partner kickoff
  3. Channel partner onboarding and certification

The welcome kit

Most people I spoke to felt that a welcome kit was the bare basics that were essential to set their channel partners on the right track. Some things that they recommended including were:

  • Stakeholder details: Giving them points of contact when they need to register a lead or have an objection query;
  • Welcome message from your leadership team: Providing high-level information on the product and where your channel partners fit into the overall business strategy; and
  • Process and product information: Giving them access to everything to get them started, from your partner enablement platform to price lists and product information.

Most felt it was best to make the welcome kit available on their partner enablement platform rather than overwhelming reps with bulky hard copies or attachment-laden emails.

Channel partner leadoff

To get their new relationship off to a flying start, most customers held a channel partner meeting in the first couple of days. One customer used the leadoff as an opportunity to relay their vision for the relationship and generate excitement about their products.

While it is possible to conduct the leadoff remotely most felt it was more effective in person. One organization brought in some of their business leaders and key stakeholders to speak to their new sales team in real time. They felt this was not only very impactful but also showed their channel partners how committed they were to their success and the relationship.

Channel partner onboarding

In my discussions, I was interested to learn that not all channel partner onboarding programs were created equal. Some companies had different levels of training depending on what the primary KPIs of the channel partner’s reps were. This in turn also influenced how long the onboarding process took, and ranged anywhere from three to ten days.

For example, one business used a channel partner only to generate leads for them. Their training included:

  • How to frame an elevator pitch
  • Product training
  • How to conduct cold campaigns
  • Examples of email templates and cold calling scripts
  • Their best success stories

Another customer also charged their channel partner with managing opportunities, so their onboarding program also covered:

  • In-depth product capabilities and benefits
  • How to conduct a product demo
  • Handling common objections
  • Case Studies and talking points

Regardless of the depth of the training provided, all of our customers found that their onboarding program was most effective when it included a mix of media such as video, presentations, quizzes and even role plays. For example, one used quizzes to help reinforce product training and role plays to perfect elevator pitches.

One of the customers I spoke to runs a very complex channel partner program, with a tiered approach to their partners’ sales team. Some channel partner’ reps only conducted lead generation, while others were charged with seeing the sales process right through to closing. In line with these different services, their onboarding program had several training paths. This ensured that no one was being trained for anything they didn’t need, thereby cutting down the onboarding time for some reps so they could start selling quicker.

Another organization that I spoke to found that it made sense to tailor their onboarding program so that it fits in with their channel partner’s specific business model. This high touch approach meant that they couldn’t bring on board several channel partners at the same time. But they believed that taking a bespoke approach reaped greater benefits in the long run as their onboarding program made more sense to their channel partner. In some instances, they even removed parts of their onboarding program because they found it had already been covered by another product’s process. This not only cut down the onboarding time for their product but also ensured they weren’t providing reps with the information they’ve already been trained on.

Mindtickle Learning Board

The shorter training sessions, when coupled with other tools also helped improve engagement. All of the companies I spoke to believed that the information in their onboarding was adopted more readily when it was made interesting or had a tangible outcome. Some facilitated peer to peer interaction in the learning process, while others created healthy competition by gamifying outcomes.

While each organization bore the responsibility for putting together their onboarding program, some also involved their channel partner when creating the program. Many found this is to be particularly helpful when the channel partner was responsible for a marketing budget, as it gave them buy-in into the onboarding process.

Channel partner certification

All of our customers felt that certifying their channel partner’s reps was an important step in their partner management process, and translated into a greater share of wallet for their product.

One company commented that as their certification process improved, they were able to scale their business faster as well. This is because the certification process helped them identify what additional coaching or training their channel partner’ reps required, and also enabled them to prioritize their efforts between different channel partners.

Just as the onboarding process had different tiers, those customers with complex channel partner relationships also had different levels of certification for individual reps. For example, one organization used:

  • Level 1 – For partners who are responsible for lead generation
  • Level 2 – For partners who are also responsible for conducting demos
  • Level 3 – For partners who are also responsible for closing the deal

They then rolled up these individual certifications as part of their broader accreditation for each channel partner.

The 4 Pillars of Knowing “What to Sell"

Mohit Garg on April 7, 2016

The training stage of any sales onboarding program is by far the most important. This is when the new reps learn the essential knowledge that sets the stage for their success in subsequent steps in the onboarding process, and then eventually in their future selling activities.

In order for this “training” to be truly effective, it is extremely important for the company’s product or service to be projected to the new hire from the eyes of the customer – in the context of the customer’s business, industry, challenges, needs, opportunities and pain points.  Learning “What to Sell” is much more than just product training or learning how to describe the company’s solutions and services. Rather, it should prepare your reps to articulate the true value proposition behind those offerings when they get in front of a customer.

There are 4 pillars to what to sell:

  • Industry
  • Customer personas
  • Product
  • Competitive analysis

sales onboarding

These pillars support the articulation of the value proposition and stand on a firm foundation of case studies and success stories.

1. Industry knowledge: setting context from a customer perspective

Before your rep can put your product and their customer’s needs in context, they need to understand your business model and its surrounding ecosystem. This isn’t so much about specific players in the industry, but rather about how your customer sees your industry and what are the first impressions that the customers build as they research the various options available in the market.  For example, they may come across influencers in the field, industry bodies and complementary products and service providers, that will all have a role in influencing their thoughts and understanding of how they can solve their specific problem. It’s for this reason that it’s critical for your new sales reps understand your industry and how your customer perceives it.

2. Buyer personas: know your customer

The second pillar is about knowing your customer. Who are they? What are their specific problems? What do they know about how to solve their problem? What is their buying process?

In most businesses, there is more than one customer persona for each product, for example, at Mindtickle we have several different buyer personas and sub-personas as well, that cover differences between customer industries. While the Mindtickle platform may be evaluated and administrated by sales enablement and training professionals, the ultimate approval and decision makers end up sales leaders in fast-growing companies.

For each buyer persona (and sub-persona), the sales rep should understand the type of messages that resonate with them, what channels they research and purchase through, what their specific problems are, and what level of maturity in the buying process they are at. This is all valuable information that forms the basis for how your reps adjust their messaging depending on whom they are interacting with.

3. Know your product as your customer sees It

Knowing your product and its features is only part of this pillar. Your sales reps add value to your customers by not only understanding their product features but by shining a torch on how to apply them to your buyer’s specific needs and issues. They should be asking themselves how does the product solve the buyer’s problem? How often do the customers use the product and for what purpose? What will be the impact on the customer if they purchase this product (for example will it increase their revenue or save time perhaps)?

By not only understanding your product but also its context to the customer, you can make a huge difference to the buyer and also your bottom line. For example, one of our customers discovered that by training their reps not only on the features of its different product offerings but also on how each product met the needs of different customer personas, their sales reps were better equipped to sell to different customers more competently. This gave them a distinct competitive advantage and increased their sales.

For product companies, the most effective and easiest-to-implement process for sales reps to develop an appreciation of the product to have them step into the shoes of the customer and experience the product themselves. While this is not as easy and straightforward to experience for services and solution companies, observing and studying customer stories can be almost as effective.

4. Competitive analysis: understand your worth

One of our customers is one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Silicon Valley and was able to leverage its competitive advantage because it performed an extensive competitive benchmarking exercise and trained its sales reps on the competitive landscape in which it operated.

This goes further than just knowing who your competitors are and looking at how your product stacks up against your competition. Don’t just look at what features your product has that your competitors don’t, but also which customer personas value these features and the use cases and contexts in which each of those relative strengths and weaknesses manifests themselves. For example, if you’re dealing with a customer persona who values analytics and reporting, then they will specifically value knowing that you can make data-driven decision-making easier and more cost-effective for them.

Another component that your new reps should learn about the competitive environment is how to handle customer objections and feature requests. It is quite likely that many of your prospects may also reach to your competitors before making a final decision. Therefore, by understanding their offering your reps will know the context of the objections based on competitor comparisons and be able to rebut them effectively. As a general rule of thumb, about 80% of your objections will be standard and can be trained mostly online. Sales managers can then deal with skill gaps or non-standard objections during the Coaching stage of onboarding.

Bringing it all together: Articulating the core value proposition

Overarching the four pillars is the core value proposition, the promise of why your company and your offering exist. There isn’t just one value proposition for a product or service, but rather multiple tiers that are tailored to different buyer personas, addressing the issues that are relevant to them respectively. By building on the context of the overall industry, understanding the buyer’s specific needs, and how your product can serve that need, your sales rep would be best positioned to create a compelling elevator pitch. While an elevator pitch may only have limited utility, when combined with real customer stories and examples, the deep understanding of the value proposition is an essential ingredient of a compelling and persuasive sales conversation with a prospect.

Finally, bring To life what to sell through case studies and customer stories

Underpinning your pillars and value proposition are case studies and success stories that provide color and context to how to deal with issues out on the field. Observing and listening into real customer calls or demos can be a great opportunity for new reps to see those stories being played out in real action.

Maintaining a library of video recordings of how experienced reps steer customer discussions can also be really valuable as it provides an opportunity for new reps to pick up sound bites and examples that have been tried and tested. In addition, sharing a repository of referenceable customers, case studies and stories can be an invaluable resource for sales reps.

The good news is that most of these “what to sell” components can be learned almost completely online, freeing up time for sales managers to be more involved at other stages of the onboarding process where they can add more value.

Outcomes

If done right, at the end of this stage they should be able to identify and relate with the customer personas, articulate the value proposition as it applies to specific customers and handles the majority of customer objections. This can be validated through online quizzes and mock pitching exercises. By certifying your sales rep at this point, you can see what knowledge they’ve achieved and where there may be some skill gaps to work on. Of course, if they pass their What to Sell certification, you can give them their learners permit knowing they’re on their way to becoming competent and are ready to move onto learning How To Sell.

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