sales readiness Archives

When Launching Sales Enablement Tools, Create a Change Management Strategy

Deepti Sundareshan on May 24, 2018

We’ve talked about best practices for successful implementation, how to increase the adoption of initiatives, and how to manage change when launching sales enablement tools.

But before you begin your sales enablement implementation process, you must understand how creating a change management strategy can ensure you receive the desired outcomes.

What is a change management strategy?

Change is necessary for companies to remain competitive in today’s marketplace. Unfortunately, people tend to resist change and wish to continue doing what they’ve been doing. Change management helps guide an organization through the transitional process as quickly and easily as possible. Change management strategy is a framework to support changes. It isn’t about the alterations themselves.

Why you need a strategy before your implementation

When preparing to change any processes in your organization it is important to create a unified strategy. Having a strategy ensures that everyone is on the same page before you start to make a change. You’ll confirm that everyone impacted by the upcoming transition understands the need for it. Plus they’ll know what to expect and will help you collect any needed input. When this all happens ahead of time, it brings people closer together and makes them feel more comfortable. This leads to increased compliance and adoption throughout the entire journey to your new desired state.

Creating your strategy

Preparing a strategy is about gathering information that allows you to make educated decisions when you create your actual implementation plans. Your strategy helps ensure changes are consistent and successfully applied to your entire organization. It’s about being aware of key factors ahead of your actual planning and implementation. There are three main steps to creating your change management strategy. They include:

Situational awareness
Supporting team structure
Change management strategy analysis

Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps.

Situational awareness

This step involves gaining a better understanding of the actual change, who will be affected, and how your organization may have previously worked through similar changes, if applicable. Specifically, you need to look at change characteristics, organizational attributes, and groups that will be involved.
Change characteristics

Gain an understanding of the change that you’ll be introducing. Answer the following questions to uncover the characteristics of your planned change: What is involved in the change? How many people will it affect? Who will be impacted? Will they all be affected in the same way or differently? What is being changed – processes, systems, job roles, etc? Over what period of time will the change occur?
Organizational attributes: This is about understanding the history and culture of your organization as a means to better understand the people and groups being impacted. Remember that various groups will be affected in different ways. Considerations here include: How do employees and managers perceive the need for this change? Has your organization ever managed similar changes? If so, how was it done? Does the organization have a shared vision of the final outcome? How much change is already taking place prior to the upcoming implementation?
Groups that will be involved: This final step in situational awareness entails developing a picture of who will be most involved in the change and how they will be impacted. You want an understanding of how different groups will be affected in their own unique way. This will enable specific and customized plans to accommodate each group during the actual change management process.

Supporting team structure

It’s important to identify a team and sponsor to support your change management strategy. Without this, it will be quite difficult to implement your plans when the time comes. Let’s take a look at both of these.

Team structure: The change management team structure establishes who will be managing the change. It explains how the project team and the change management team will work together. It also specifies the team members and their responsibilities.
Sponsor coalition: The sponsor coalition specifies which sales executives, operations, managers, and top performers should be onboard and actively involved in driving the change. It also designates the primary sponsor who authorizes and champions the specific change. The sponsor must be actively and openly engaged throughout the change project. All members of this coalition are responsible for building support and communicating with their particular audience within your organization concerning the change.

Change management strategy analysis

To ensure your change management strategy is effective, it’s important to consider what could cause your implementation to fail. Doing so allows you to proactively determine how to address these stumbling blocks so they don’t cause any delays in reaching your desired outcomes. Below are the three steps you need to take in this part of strategy creation.

Project risk assessment: The more dramatic and extensive the change, the higher the risk. You also have a greater chance of difficulties if your organization tends to have a history of resisting change. As you develop your strategy, the change management team should document all potential risk factors.
Anticipated resistance: Think carefully about where you might anticipate push-back on the upcoming change. Are there particular divisions, groups, positions, or individuals that are most likely to resist the new implementation? Making note of these can prevent them, or help prepare you to address them when they arise.
Developing special tactics: Once you’ve identified your potential risks and resistances, you should determine how you will deal with each when and if they arise. Have these strategies prepared to facilitate smoother progress throughout your implementation? Of course, it is impossible to anticipate every issue in advance, so you’ll want to revisit this step periodically during your launch process.

After you create your strategy you’ll be ready to devise your change management plans. Be sure to stay focused on the information you uncovered while developing your strategy. It will greatly impact the success of your implementation. Without taking the time to create your change management strategy, you risk disorganization, a lack of compliance, or incomplete change. This will only lead to greatly reduced results. Now it’s time for you to create a change management strategy to prepare for your upcoming sales readiness implementation to ensure the best possible outcomes.

Gaining a Competitive Sales Advantage with Virtual Micro-Learning

Deepti Sundareshan on May 16, 2018

In today’s ever-changing marketplace, it’s becoming more and more difficult to get an edge over competitors. Developing a strong value proposition is one way to clearly explain to prospects why they should buy your solution over others. In fact, a great value proposition could be the difference between losing a sale or closing it. According to HubSpot, only 69% of B2B firms have established value propositions, yet 54 percent of companies do nothing to optimize theirs. A strong value proposition alone is not enough to get ahead of your business rivals. It takes a well-prepared salesforce who can effectively leverage your value proposition to make the difference. The best way to prepare them to do so is with the ongoing, bite-sized training that’s accessible from anywhere. Here, we’ll show you how you’ll gain a competitive sales advantage with virtual micro-learning.

Attract and retain good talent

According to research by Gallup,

59% of millennials say opportunities to learn and grow are extremely important to them when

applying for a job

. In comparison, 44% of Gen Xers and 41% of baby boomers say the same about these types of opportunities. Plus, the Harvard Business Review found that dissatisfaction with development efforts such as training and coaching cause many to leave their job for another with better development opportunities.

Sales rep engagement increases when micro-learning is used instead of other training methods because it’s in a format that’s easily incorporated into their routine while meeting their desire to learn. It also increases job satisfaction, since the sales staff feels more prepared and enjoys their work more. Plus, micro-learning is fun!

Faster onboarding

Effective salespeople are masters of a complex skill set. It takes technical expertise and fine-tuned people skills to translate product specs into persuasive value. Micro-learning

shortens ramp time. This means less time to full productivity and more reps selling at their full potential at all times. This reduces the financial drain on the organization and creates a stronger selling team compared to those of competitors.

Always up-to-date

In today’s marketplace, there’s always something new to learn and changes to know. They include updates relating to product, marketplace, prospect challenges, industry information, competitors, and the best sales techniques. With micro-learning, your reps are continually learning and always up to date on the latest need-to-know information.

It helps them easily

keep their knowledge and skills fresh. Consistently improving through reinforcement with practice and application, they’re always ready for any prospect or scenario.

The right information at the right time

Since virtual micro-learning is available from anywhere on any device, sales reps can review the information they need, when they need it. For example, they can refresh on value propositions for specific prospects just prior to presenting to or meeting with, them. This easy-to-access information makes it possible for reps to respond promptly to prospect and customer questions too, resulting in increased sales and customer satisfaction.

This content, consumed at the moment the rep most needs it, is reinforced with an immediate application that results in greater retention. The individualized learning experience that micro-learning provides keeps reps interested and wanting to learn more to fill their individual learning gaps.

Increased productivity

Unlike other learning methods,

micro-learning doesn’t interrupt your reps’ daily work, it fits right in. They remain on-the-job instead of sitting in a training room where they aren’t productive. Also, your team members learn faster and retain more with micro-learning, so they’re better prepared to close more business in less time.

Agile

Matching the pace of today’s business, virtual micro-learning is agiler than other forms of training and communication. Due to their brevity, micro-learning courses can be produced quickly and updated on the go. Plus, notifications about changes to your company, competition, product, and more are easily created and distributed with just a few clicks.

This allows your organization to adapt to change quickly and easily in the marketplace.

As you can see, micro-learning enables your sales force to be better prepared to meet with various prospects, differentiate your solution, and win more deals. With the top talent that’s always up-to-date and continually improving, you’ll already have an edge over your rivals. The resulting productivity combined with your ability to rapidly change with the marketplace, your industry opponents will be no match. It’s time for you to give this method of learning a try and experience the competitive sales advantage with virtual micro-learning in your company.

Reducing Overall Sales Training Costs By Using Virtual Micro-Learning

Deepti Sundareshan on May 9, 2018

Historically sales training has been event-based. The costs can really add up with this style of learning. Fortunately, with today’s sales technologies, you no longer need to invest in old-style educational methods. If your organization is like most, you’re looking for ways to contain spending. Using virtual micro-learning is a great way to do so. In fact, it’s been found to cost at least 50% less to develop than traditional training. That’s some significant savings. So, how is it possible to reduce costs with virtual micro-learning for sales?

What is virtual micro-learning?

Micro-learning involves bite-sized, mobile-friendly, highly focused, individualized training content that can be retrieved from anywhere. That’s what makes it virtual. It includes various content types such as videos, games, quizzes, audio recordings, simulations and more. Research shows that learning in short bursts over time, combined with short quizzes, results in a better long-term recall. That’s why this method of learning is more effective than traditional classroom or event-based training.

Where can you reduce costs?

There are many categories where you can reduce costs with virtual micro-learning for sales. They include:

Travel
Facilities and planning
Materials
Trainers
Re-training
Onboarding
Productivity

Travel

Traditional classroom or event-based training often requires your sales staff to travel to a central location. Costs such as airfare or mileage plus meals and other travel-related expenses can really add up. The larger your salesforce the higher this expense. Of course, for global enterprises, travel is even more significant. When utilizing virtual micro-learning, you reduce or eliminate the need for these sales training-related travel costs.

Facilities and planning

Sales training often involves locating and renting facilities for educational events. Even single-day events, or those taught in your own facilities, typically include meals and/or snacks for all participants as well. Micro-learning is incorporated into your sales reps’ activities on an ongoing basis. Plus it’s accessible from anywhere and on any device. This means you no longer need to incur facility expenses or a planner to make the arrangements.

Materials

Sales readiness materials are all stored in the cloud. This virtual micro-learning eliminates the need to produce, transport, or ship bulky training manuals and hand-outs. You no longer need to update existing print manuals or bear the costs associated with such a time-consuming process. The content used for micro-learning are considerably shorter than traditional materials and can be created much more quickly. This reduces development costs.

Trainers

Switching to this short-format, easily accessible learning format means that you no longer need to pay a trainer to teach in live classroom-like settings. You won’t have to pay an instructor’s hourly rates. In fact, you’ll be able to use many internal SME’s, and other knowledgeable staff members, to create training materials. You can also repurpose your existing training content.

Re-training

It’s a known fact that learning is forgotten if it’s not reiterated often. Based on research by Hermann Ebbinghaus’ research, more than 40% is forgotten within just a few days. By the end of a months’ time, participants have lost 80-90% of the information taught. This creates the need to re-train on topics periodically when traditional training methods are used. Reps are taken out of the field, yet again, simply to refresh their memory of material already covered. With micro-learning, you never need to conduct retraining or refresher training sessions. Plus, information reinforcement is built into the easily accessible bite-sized training style.

Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

(as seen on flashcardlearner.com)

Onboarding

Research indicates that employee retention increases when companies keep them engaged and provide quality training. Virtual micro-learning enables excellent training that accomplishes both of these needs. This, in turn, reduces sales rep turnover, the need for new hires, and the resulting onboarding expenses. Plus, micro-learning accelerates new rep ramp rate because modules are short and easy to digest. This means that they reach full productivity faster, reducing onboarding costs, and increasing their contribution to the bottom line sooner.

Productivity

Although productivity is a soft cost, its financial impact is very real. Traditional training requires your sales force to lose valuable selling time that can never be recovered. Sales dollars are reduced during the time your sales team is at an event. It also takes your reps time to get back into their normal routine once they return from training. Micro-learning doesn’t have this negative impact on sales productivity because it easily fits into your sales reps’ daily schedule.

These savings are just one aspect of the value of using virtual micro-learning to educate your sales force. With pressure to contain costs, this is one way that you can accomplish this goal while getting an edge in the marketplace. Next time we’ll be talking about gaining a competitive advantage with virtual micro-learning. In the meanwhile, you can reduce costs with virtual micro-learning for sales so your organization can start experiencing the benefits now.

Building an Integrated Sales Enablement Ecosystem

Deepti Sundareshan on April 25, 2018

With today’s buyers waiting until they are 60 – 80% along their buying process, depending on which research you read, it’s becoming more and more important for these cross-functional departments to get on the same page. Without this alignment, it becomes nearly impossible for sales to function efficiently and close business as effectively as possible. That’s why building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem is important.

A sales enablement ecosystem should ensure that salespeople have access to the right content at the right time to advance sales. Plus, it should provide technology to sales staff that will help them streamline their tasks. An ecosystem that consists of a sales enablement platform that sits between the enterprise marketing automation (MA) system and its customer relationship management (CRM) system can facilitate the collection of intelligence from both systems and everything else that happens in between. Combining the data from both systems can help provide analytics and insights to use in decision making. With such a platform, the more solutions you can be integrated, the greater the insights. This intel is valuable to all involved departments including Marketing, Sales, Sales Ops, Product Development, Customer Service, and more. And, it puts everyone on the same page for more streamlined and efficient operations.

There are many benefits to building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem, including:

Consistent messaging
Improved communications across the entire enterprise help with consistency of branding, messaging, and updated product information. It provides sales with timely information that’s needed to craft messages for specific prospects. Without this free flow of information between departments, it’s more difficult to achieve business success.

Buyer’s journey alignment
Improved marketing and sales alignment with the buyer’s journey is a result of improved intra-department communications. Marketing needs to remain informed concerning prospect motivators and challenges. Sales reps are in the best position to acquire this information and share it with Marketing. Salespeople see the ever-evolving pain points of their leads and are able to share them. This allows Marketing to continually create content to address these as they change.

Agile strategy adjustments
This open feedback from sales reps to other departments, such as Marketing and Operations, facilitates quick changes to sales and marketing strategies.

Ability to share quickly and easily
These adjustments are then easily communicated through this shared platform in the form of updates, training, and new content. And it’s all done with the simple click of a button.

A huge competitive advantage
Due to increased efficiencies, organizations who build a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem gain a huge competitive advantage in the marketplace.

A fully enabled sales team
With all training, coaching, content, and communications funneling through one platform, your sales team is always up-to-date. They are prepared for any prospect or situation and able to create valuable solutions easily.</>

Increased sales performance and productivity
With everything available in one place, sales reps are able to find the content they need quickly, gaining increased selling time. Plus, consistent updates, training, and coaching make them more effective. These elements improve sales results as well.

Building your ecosystem

With so many benefits you’re probably wondering how to go about building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem for your organization. Start by determining your objectives and goals. Next, select a sales enablement platform that will best meet your requirements. The selection process includes considerations such as ease of use, mobile readiness, integration options, and analytics capabilities. Be sure to consider whether the vendor will be a good partner on the long-term. Implement your selected solution. This includes defining scope, allocating resources, building a process, training, and more. You’ll find additional information about this process in this article.

A clearer structure and open communications provide for better operations. Building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem keeps Sales, Marketing, Operations, and more on the same page. The many benefits you’ll gain include consistent messaging and improved buyer’s journey alignment. Agile strategy adjustments and sharing of information at the touch of a button allow your organization to stay ahead of other businesses in the marketplace. This gives your company an advantage over the competition. A fully enabled salesforce increases sales performance and productivity. Of course, all of this adds up to a stronger organization and better bottom line. As you can see, it’s worth the effort to start building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem so your organization can reap the benefits too.

How to Change from Feature-Based Selling to Value-Based Selling

Deepti Sundareshan on April 17, 2018

When making changes to your sales approach or processes, you want to be sure you achieve your desired outcomes. With a plan in place, you increase the likelihood that you will. Below are the steps you need to take to change from feature-based selling to value-based selling.

To make this transition you’ll want to follow these steps:

Revise your sales process
Update your competency framework
Identify and create the required content
Identify individual knowledge and skill gaps
Guide and coach your reps through personalized training
Provide ongoing updates

Revise your sales process

There are several reasons to revise your sales process. They include changes to your company, team, product, customer base, customer behaviors, and decreased results from your existing process. Changing your sales methodology is often the outcome of one of these reasons. To revise your sales process consider what changes will be necessary to accommodate your value-selling approach. When, in the buyer’s journey, will your reps be initially engaging with prospects? What steps will need to take place, using a value focus, to convert the prospect to a customer? Map this out very carefully so your sales team always knows what’s next to advance through the process successfully. Once the process is implemented, be sure to use metrics and rep feedback to fine-tune and adjust it as needed.

Update your competency frameworks

Before you can make the change from feature-based to value-based selling, you need to update your sales competency frameworks. These plans provide detailed information about behaviors, skills, and knowledge requirements for each sales position. They simplify benchmarking and help you easily recognize successful training outcomes. To update your frameworks, consider what knowledge, skills, and attributes should be removed from your current ones for each sales position. Next, add any new competencies that will be required for effective value selling. Depending on your particular product or service, these will vary. In our discussion about value-selling, we included several categories of skills and knowledge your team must have for success. They include product, case studies, marketplace, industry information, and buyer personas. Compare these to your current competencies to identify the updates needed. If you’d like more information relating to sales competency frameworks, we discuss this topic in more detail in

this article

Identify and create the required content

Once you’ve updated your sales process and your competency frameworks, you’ll be able to identify content gaps. Develop updated content that incorporates your new messaging for both internal and external use. Be sure that you have content for every stage of the sales process, prospect industries, and each persona involved in the buying process. Content will include training materials such as buyer personas and corresponding value propositions for each product, industry, and persona. Plus sales playbooks and training materials like audio, video, and written training snippets, assessment quizzes, games, and certification exercises. Client-facing content tools might include case studies, white papers, e-books, and the like. As this content is used, don’t forget to gather feedback on it from your sales team. Track which pieces are used and which are most effective. This will simplify future content planning.

Identify individual knowledge and skill gaps

If you training your entire sales team on the same material, you risk boring more experienced reps while confusing less experienced ones. You should allow reps to fulfill their individual training requirements. To do so, you must identify each team member’s specific knowledge and skill gaps. There are several ways to do this. These include observation of demonstrated skills and behaviors, assessments through task simulations, self-assessments, quizzes, and performance data. To learn more, you can read

this article

about identifying knowledge and skill gaps.

Personalized training with coaching

Armed with your reps’ knowledge and skill gap information, you can start guiding and coaching your reps through the personalized training they need. Prioritize their training needs to help them get started. Utilize short bite-sized written and video training modules. At the end of each module, include short quizzes and games designed to measure their understanding while reinforcing what they’ve learned. Simulation missions allow sales reps to practice and apply what they have learned. For minimal impact on their schedules, these are completed via mobile video and coach feedback is provided. This will reinforce correct practices and prevent the development of bad practices. It’s an excellent way to incorporate another layer of coaching.

Leverage gamification

to motivate them to advance through their training. Leaderboards and rewards will activate their competitive nature too while keeping the process fun and engaging. Incorporate certifications at the end of each course to ensure that reps are properly prepared to effectively apply their newly-learned knowledge and skills.

Provide ongoing refreshers and updates

It’s been shown that training, without ongoing reinforcement, is very quickly forgotten. This is why it is important that you provide your salesforce with refreshers and updates. Refreshers can include bite-sized pieces of supplemental information relating to what they’ve already learned. Share cheat sheets, best practice examples, and reminders. Send out pop quizzes from time to time also. This will allow them to recall knowledge they’ve been taught and apply it. Coaching and simulations exercises are also excellent ways to help your team remain effective by using their skills in different scenarios so they’re always prepared. Updates should include information about new content, new success stories, changes in the marketplace, and changes internally. With these, they’ll always have the latest information at their disposal and never be caught off guard by unexpected questions from prospects pertaining to the latest changes.

Now you have a roadmap to help you change from feature-based to value-based selling. Once you’ve completed this process your team members will be prepared to provide more valuable solutions to their prospects. The end result will be consistently elevated rep performance and more closed deals. And isn’t that the goal? Now it’s time for you to get started with this process so you receive the benefits of value-based selling in your organization!

Why Companies are Transitioning from Traditional Training to Enablement and Readiness

Deepti Sundareshan on March 15, 2018

More and more companies are transitioning from traditional training methods like classroom training and webinars. They’re recognizing the need for a change and transitioning from traditional training to sales enablement and readiness instead. According to CSO Insights, 59.2% of surveyed companies currently have a sales enablement program. Another 8.5% plan to start one this year. Let’s take a look at what’s causing this trend.

Why make the change now?

Companies are recognizing they need a change. Here are some symptoms they’re experiencing. These are clear signs that what they’re doing isn’t working anymore.

Quota attainment continually decreasing: It’s been shown that the percentage of sales reps hitting their quotas have decreased year after year since 2012 and is now 53%. You can improve sales performance to meet ever-increasing targets with sales enablement and readiness.

Sales’ declining ability to close Marketing-provided leads: An inability to continually hone sales skills with classroom training and webinars is an issue many companies fact. Sales enablement, when implemented properly, addresses this issue.

Uncertain of what exactly is working and what needs to change: Sales enablement facilitates identification of weaknesses and strengths. Plus, it makes it easier to implement corrections and adjustments needed to continuously fine-tune the sales process so it keeps pace with ongoing market changes.

Sales rep ramp times are too long: Today’s sales reps average 2 years on the job before changing companies. With an average ramp time of 6 months to full productivity, reps are only effective for three-quarters of the time they are in any given position. The hiring and training process is too costly for team members to be inefficient for such a long time. Sales enablement initiatives shorten ramp time. Not only that, the ongoing learning and growth associated with sales enablement increases rep retention because it fulfills the desire of today’s’ employees for continual improvement.

Sales processes didn’t match reality: Reps are being trained one way and then having to make their own adjustments to make it work on the job. Enablement and readiness ensure that training and practice are properly aligned or corrected as needed.

Reps are only spending a fraction of their time selling: It’s been documented that sales reps are actually only spending 37% of their time on revenue-generating activities. Enablement corrects this issue by increasing their selling time and making them more effective as well.

Competitors are winning: Competitors who have implemented enablement and readiness are closing more business, due to increased efficiency and effectiveness. It hurts companies who haven’t jumped on the enablement/readiness bandwagon yet. Companies are feeling the pain, by losing market share. They know they need to make a change before it’s too late.

Why are sales enablement and readiness better?

It’s been known for some time that training isn’t productive by itself. Without ongoing coaching and reinforcement, 90% of information shared in a traditional classroom or webinar training is forgotten within a month’s time. There are many reasons that sales enablement and readiness are more favorable. Here are some of the more popular ones:

More cost-effective: Besides being ineffective, traditional training is costly, involving expenses such as room rental, transportation, trainers, and lost opportunity. Plus it’s time-consuming and reduces staff efficiency by cutting into valuable rep selling time. Sales enablement and readiness keeps costs under control by keeping reps on the job and productive while eliminating many of the additional costs.
Proactive: Current sales enablement practices allow companies to push sales learning or updates, instead of creating something and hoping it will be used/consumed. This creates a state of perpetual readiness for successful rep interactions of any type with prospects and customers.
Tailor-made learning paths: Transitioning from classroom and webinar training allows for personalized training. It means that not everyone needs to go through the same training, in the same order, and at the same pace. Reps are able to take quizzes to determine their individual training needs and priorities. This determines their specific learning path.
Internally sourced: It used to be that companies would hire external experts to train their salesforce. Enablement/readiness allows for the sharing of best practices through of an internally-sourced library. It can be approved by the enablement/operations and accessible/searchable by all, in bite-sized modules. This library may include examples, demonstrations, and explanations of how to do or accomplish certain goals or skills.
Bite-sized/spaced learning: Small, frequent learning sessions minimize the impact on busy schedules and provide repetition that reinforces learning. They’re easy to consume and easy to apply on the job. In fact, research by Hermann Ebbinghaus proves that this is the most effective way to learn and retain information, change behaviors, and develop new skills.
Available on-demand: Since sales enablement content is available anywhere and anytime, consistent participation is easy to fit into even the busiest schedule. This eliminates the negative impacts of taking reps off the job for training.
Facilitates practice and feedback: Enablement makes it possible for reps to practice new skills in a safe environment by recording themselves on the go. It removes the need to be in an office or to schedule meetings, to know what to strengthen and adjust, while learning new methods or information. Feedback, built into the process, reinforces correct behaviors and prevents the development of bad habits or incorrect information.
Allows measurement: Enablement and readiness simplify the documentation and measurement of progress through role-plays, quizzes and other methods. So often, companies don’t measure traditional training results or they are unmeasurable. The new way of learning makes it easy.

I’m sure that it’s clear now why companies are transitioning from traditional training methods to more impactful enablement and readiness. Which methods sound better to you? If you need more information about this topic, read this article about readiness or this article about sales training and enablement.

Best Practices for Successful Implementation of Sales Readiness Tools in 2018

Deepti Sundareshan on March 12, 2018

Modern sales technologies have the potential to positively impact sales organizations with increased efficiencies and productivity while boosting results. In fact, according to Aberdeen Research, companies with a sales enablement tool had a 13% revenue growth rate, 3x that of companies without this technology. The challenge businesses face when implementing these tools, is how to effectively proceed so their salesforce will actually use it. So, how do companies successfully implement new sales readiness tools for optimum benefits?

Define the scope
Before getting started it is critical, to the success of your implementation, that you first define your goals, develop a plan, and designate roles for the process.

If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to do so, how will you know what success looks like? It is also important that you identify who will be responsible for which roles during the process to ensure that all tasks are covered and that none are forgotten.

Allocate resources and support
It is important that you and your technology vendor allocate the necessary resources to handle all aspects of the implementation. It’s equally as necessary to have support mechanisms in place as you roll out your new sales tool. You don’t want your salesforce to abandon usage because they can’t gain answers to their questions, or assistance with issues while learning.

Don’t try to do everything at once
Most technologies have many features. Prioritize which features will benefit your organization the most, in the shortest time, and implement around those first. Then build from there. It’s important for your organization, especially your reps and managers, to see results quickly. If they feel that the tool is helping them be better, or more productive, they are more likely to adopt it and use it routinely.

Build the process
Prepare all elements needed throughout your initial process. Be sure that all materials are aligned with your sales process and buyer’s journey. Once you’ve done so you’ll know what content you’ll need throughout your implementation and will be able to plan for future requirements as well.

Consider a pilot
Complete a pilot first for a subset of your salesforce. This allows you to gather feedback from power users and laggards, to determine best practices and roadblocks, to tool use as well as the launch process. You’ll also have success stories and wins to share with the rest of the sale force when you roll out the new technology to them. Plus, you will have champions and mentors from the pilot group to assist with the balance of the launch.

Train each role separately
It’s best to train individuals based on how they will use the tool, not based on a title. This prevents confusion and overwhelm, by only training on tool functions they’ll actually be using, but not on those that don’t apply to them. This will also save valuable time for all involved.

Drive adoption
Keep it simple and provide opportunities for staff to easily utilize the new tool, so they’ll see its benefits quickly. Some companies find that using the new platform, for information updates and event pre-work, for an upcoming meeting is effective. This is true because it involves all who need to become familiar with the new platform and provides the repetitive practice needed for learning.

Continuous feedback and refinement
Be sure to set up a mechanism to collect user feedback on a routine basis. This allows timely adjustments to the process as you continue to introduce additional features and functionalities.

Taking these steps will result in widespread adoption and successful implementation of your new sales readiness tools. For more tips on how organizations have launched sales technology for optimum results, check out this article or this case study.

8 Benefits of Digital Learning for Sales

Deepti Sundareshan on March 8, 2018

Not all that long ago, in-person classroom training was how companies prepared their sales force to engage in selling activities. They’d provide instructor-led classes that took reps out of their work environments for days at a time. Cumbersome paper binders and manuals were used for reference, being updated maybe once or twice a year, if ever.

It also used to be that managers and reps had to meet for coaching to ensure continuous performance improvement. Today, digitization of learning simplifies these processes and enables your sales force to learn and develop efficiently while hitting their targets. So what are some of the other benefits of digitization? Let’s take a look.

Digital learning minimizes or eliminates in-person events

Allows completion of pre-work, as well as post-work reinforcement, so that in-person training and coaching are kept to a minimum. This reduces the impact and costs associated with these sessions. Pre-work allows participants to prepare before attendance, so that any in-person time may be dedicated to discussion and practice, instead of instruction and one-sided demonstration.

Post-work and ongoing learning is easily delivered in micro-learning modules. According to research by Hermann Ebbinghaus, these small, frequent sessions over time produce better knowledge retention and skills development when compared to less-frequent sessions. Digitization allows for the provision of these bite-sized learning modules that have minimal impact on schedules. They also reinforce lessons learned during live sessions.

Gamification is often part of digital learning. It makes it more engaging and enjoyable, encouraging increased participation and improved outcomes.

Enables timely feedback

Feedback is important when learning. The fact that digitized learning is provided through the cloud makes it well-suited for technologies that are mobile-friendly. With portable, digital learning, reps are able to record audio or video of their practice pitch, demo, or skill to submit for feedback. Their coach, trainer, colleague, or manager may then provide timely input, reinforcing correct behaviors and preventing the development of poor habits.

Flexibility

Digitization of learning provides flexibility to reps and managers alike. Content is easily accessible and micro-learning is simple to incorporate into busy schedules. Plus sales coaching and readiness become a part of the day-to-day routine, instead of being an occasional occurrence. That’s a huge improvement over the 21.7% of sales managers who, according to CSO Insights, have implemented a formal coaching program.

Personalized

Digital learning facilitates personalization. Instead of teaching a group with various backgrounds and knowledge, material viewed by each rep is specific to their learning needs. This ensures continuous growth. It also makes it possible for individuals to progress at their own pace. Those who grasp new skills and information more rapidly no longer need to be held back by those who may need more assistance with certain skills or concepts.

Improves accountability

Learning in the cloud increases accountability. Since it easily fits into any schedule and participation can take place anywhere, there’s simply no excuse not to complete designated tasks on an ongoing basis. Each activity is documented, so there’s no doubt when and what has been accomplished by individual reps and managers.

Simplified certification

In the past, it used to be necessary to take reps and managers out of the field to certify them. They’d travel to a central location to demonstrate their understanding of new products or skills as well as their ability to effectively present them. This was a costly and time-consuming process for all involved. Now, digitization simplifies certifications by allowing performance and evaluation through audio or video recordings. For knowledge assessment, simple tests may also be used at the completion of modules.

Facilitates sharing best practices

It used to be that reps would ride along with more experienced ones in the field, to see how they interacted with or presented to, customers. This was costly, time-consuming, and not necessarily effective. Learning in the cloud facilitates the development of a library of best practices to easily share as examples in training and coaching. The added bonus is that these may be re-used and replayed as often as necessary to aid in the learning process. Not only that, they aren’t dependent on schedules or availability and may be accessed at any time.

Always up to date

The binders and manuals that were previously used for onboarding, training, and reference, were usually outdated by the time they were printed and distributed. There may have been additional updates and inserts distributed, but they were never as current as the digital versions created today. Being in the cloud, they aren’t cumbersome or difficult to handle and are easy to update – plus, no physical distribution is needed.

Digitization also allows organizations to share critical updates without taking reps and management out of the field so they remain productive. It also keeps them current, so they’re aware of time-sensitive internal, product, and market changes.

With all these benefits, shouldn’t you empower your salesforce by digitizing their learning too?

The future of the Chief Learning Officer

Deepti Sundareshan on March 7, 2018

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”―Benjamin Franklin

The role of Chief Learning Officer (CLO) has been around for several years. CLOs are responsible for driving the strategic direction of an organization’s learning. In the past, some have mistaken the role of a CLO to simply be populating the Learning Management System, but things are changing quickly and the role of CLO is now expected to rapidly adapt.

According to

Deloitte’s 2016 Global Human Capital Trends Report

“CLOs should become part of the entire employee experience, delivering learning solutions that inspire people to reinvent themselves, develop deep skills, and contribute to the learning of others

.” This change is being driven by several factors, and each one is shaping the role of the CLO in the future.

The future is coming quickly

It might sound obvious, but learning strategy has to reflect the business’ objectives. In the past, learning has sat to one side and focused in on specific technical knowledge or skills, but that’s no longer enough. The CLO needs to understand how the learning agenda fits into their company, the industry and what their competitors are doing. This is because the learning must not only support the business today but into the future.

While CLO’s don’t have crystal balls, they now need to keep an eye on future trends and ensure that their business has the capability and capacity to adapt quickly when required. Disruption is no longer something that happens to other businesses, it’s a real threat for every business so the CLO has to ensure that the business is prepared to weather any storm that may come their way.

Change is the new normal

In the past, learning programs could take weeks to create and be rolled out over the course of months or even years. This approach no longer works, what you learn today could change or be updated next month. This has dramatic implications for the learning agenda.

Learning programs now need to adapt and be flexible enough to accommodate continuous change. This creates challenges both for those who create learning programs and all for the people who are receiving the learning. Not only does information need to be added, changed and updated regularly, but it also needs to be easy to digest.

Learning is a continuous process, and that can’t be taught in workshops or meetings twice a year. Learning programs need to be fluid and integrated into business as usual. This means that managers and those close to the end users need to be integrated into the learning process.

The closer to a topic you are, the quicker you are able to adapt to any change to it. Things like learning agendas that enable managers to give structured and continuous coaching to their team are part of this change. Just in time training is another development that is gaining speed as it allows employees to stay on top of things as and when they need to know them.

Another thing that’s impacting this is the way work is changing as well. More workers operate remotely, work virtually and have flexible hours. This adds a new layer of complexity to how learning programs are rolled out, accessed and reinforced.

New generations are entering the workforce and older ones are leaving

By 2025, 75% of the US workforce

will be millennials, but presently they share their workplaces with Baby Boomers and Generation X. Managing multi-generational workforces has also made the role of the CLO more challenging. Each generation has different learning preferences – millennials are connected to their mobile phone while many baby boomers prefer face to face communication.

When it comes to developing learning strategies, the preferences and needs of each generation need to be taken into account. If all employees are not engaged then some will be left behind when it comes to development.

CLOs need to look at not only the content of learning programs but also how it is delivered. Some things to consider include social networks, mobile enablement and the way content is structured. For example, millennials have a preference for microlearning, which is a big shift from traditional instructional led training.

The changing dynamics within the workplace is also raising new issues. As Baby Boomers prepare to leave the workforce, along with them goes decades of experience and knowledge. Some would also prefer to remain connected to their workforce, raising the possibility of new learning opportunities like mentoring.

All of these factors need to be included in the learning agenda and prioritized by the CLO in a way that engages all employees and meets business objectives.

Every business function needs to justify their position

In the past, learning has been measured by the number of people who have completed courses but this doesn’t demonstrate the value that the learning programs have added to the organization. As organizations become leaner and more agile, every executive and each function needs show how they contribute to the achieving the business goals. This forms the basis of a business case when competing for resources. To do this CLOs need robust reporting and tracking.

Analysis should show how the learning programs have changed the way people work, made them more productive or improved their revenue earning capability. This must then also dovetail into the broader business objectives. Is the learning program a competitive differentiator in the recruitment marketplace? Does it help the business retain employees? Does the learning have a positive impact on engagement?

Retaining and engaging employees is becoming harder

Learning has traditionally been a one size fits all approach, but in order to retain employees and keep them engaged organizations need to focus in on the individual needs of their employees. Learning programs need to be flexible enough to allow individuals to develop on their own journey. By giving individuals the ability to take some responsibility for their own development and have a say in what capabilities they develop, organizations can improve engagement and build capable workforces.

This means providing learning opportunities outside the classroom. Rather than focusing on role-specific learning and build capabilities. Capabilities extend beyond technical skills and can include understanding, empathy, stakeholder management, and networking. Empower employees to learn at their own pace and to be in charge of their own destiny.

Underpinning all of these developments is the need for technology that supports the changing world of learning. Learning tools that are able to be customized and can adapt to different needs, yet still provide enough structure to support managers and leaders to have consistency in the organization. Technology can’t be an afterthought, it needs to fit in with how people work today and how they will work in the future.

The role of the CLO is certainly changing. With each and every day it becomes more challenging and complex, but it brings so many opportunities to innovate and think differently about how people learn. It’s an exciting time to be a leader in corporate learning.

It’s the Year of the Coach

Ryan Pimlott on February 28, 2018

Coaching is at the top of everyone’s minds at the moment – for good reason. A good coach can help more salespeople achieve quota by up to 10% and when you combine training and coaching, sales productivity also increases.

With these results, it’s no surprise that everyone is jumping on the coaching bandwagon, but not all coaching impactful.
According to the International Coaching Federation, coaching is:

“An interactive process to help individuals and organizations develop more rapidly and produce more satisfying results; improving other’s ability to set goals, take action, make better decisions and make full use of their natural strengths.”

Impactful coaching focuses on the needs of your reps and helps them improve how they approach different parts of the sales process or their customers. The results from impactful coaching go straight to your topline revenue.

Managers that are not impactful fail to move the needle on reps’ behavior and/or their performance. They just don’t have the skills required of a coach – perhaps they’re doing less coaching and more telling or controlling. Reps’ learn little from being told what they’re doing wrong, impactful coaching is a collaborative way to help them learn how to improve how they sell. Sometimes coaching is ineffective because managers just aren’t doing it properly — perhaps they’re just ticking a box or scoring their team more favorably in coaching exercises due to bias or even apathy.

It is possible to turn ineffective coaches into impactful ones, but in order to do that, you need to identify who is actually ineffective. Every sales manager is different, and short of watching every coaching session, it can be difficult to objectively know whether they’re making a difference to their reps’ performance. To do this you require data – but not just any data – the right data.

Identifying whether sales coaches are ineffective or impactful

The Sales Capability Index™ (SCI) is an index that has been developed by Mindtickle, which provides a capabilities score that, for the first time in the industry, provides a holistic, quantified assessment of sales rep and team readiness while also producing a leading indicator of their expected performance.

Essentially, the SCI provides a holistic, quantified assessment of individual sales reps and a manager’s entire team’s sales readiness. This is then linked to their performance, producing a leading indicator of their expected performance.

The SCI combines not only coaching but also knowledge and skill, so you can see what’s really impacting performance and what’s not. For example, if you’ve just launched a new product, coaching program, competitor series or other sales enablement initiatives to your sales team, you can see what elements have had an impact and by looking at scores before and after.

The score gives you a high level of conviction about how prepared your sales teams are and identify what initiatives are making an impact and what aren’t. It will also give you an indication of whether coaching (or other initiatives) are likely to impact your sales results so you can predict revenue more accurately.

As the data can be broken down by individual and by team, you can also see whether individual sales managers are coaching effectively – are they making a difference to the sales outcomes or not. This brings issues with sales manager’s coaching abilities to the surface, so they can be addressed long before the quarter or year is lost.

Coaching is only effective if it drives a business outcome. There is no point having your management team spend hours each week coaching reps if your top line revenue doesn’t grow. By using this data, coaching can be directly linked to real outcomes.

The same data can be used for most sales enablement initiatives. So if you launch a new product you can also look at the curriculum that was delivered to reps and assess whether it’s helped them sell or not. This helps you measure your enablement initiatives and identify where they need to be adjusted to make a real impact on your sales teams.

Coaching needs to have specific criteria for maximum effectiveness

In order to be effective, sales managers also need to know what to coach. No rep needs to be developed in every aspect of the sales process, but trying to find what they need help with isn’t always clear-cut.

By breaking down down the entire sales process and connecting each step with the enablement data that you have, you can look at sales competencies across each stage. This shows you exactly where a rep or a sales manager may need help.

The chart below gives you an example that shows you a rep that is able to explore opportunities and manage objections well, but perhaps needs help upselling and in call scheduling. The data pinpoints exactly where opportunities fail and evaluates qualitatively and quantitatively what competencies are needed at that specific stage.

This level of granularity allows managers to do tactical coaching and allows you to identify whether sales managers have skewed competencies. It gets to the heart of the issue and allows you to hone in on what needs to be done.

When looking at your sales team as a whole, it means you can identify if there is consistency across how teams are coached or if managers are perhaps playing to their strengths to the detriment of their team’s performance.

This kind of data has the potential to be a game changer. It can help identify bias in coaching performance and gives you the opportunity to address it objectively.

Empowering end users

A final way to improve impactful coaching across your sales teams is to give users the ability to approve or disapprove coaching feedback. Rather than just letting the sales managers have a say about how a coaching session went, let the reps tell you if they felt the session made a difference to them. This data can also be telling, because if your reps don’t feel like they’re benefitting from their coaching sessions, then it may be symptomatic of a broader problem – either with your coaching program or with individual coaches.

We all have so many tools in our sales stack, each providing an array of data. While it’s nice to have these numbers at our fingertips, they’re irrelevant if they can’t tell you how to improve your sales outcomes. After all, who has time to look through every data point available to them and work out what they’re saying.

For the Year of the Coach to make a real difference to your sales outcomes, you need to ensure that you have access to data that clearly and succinctly helps you link your coaching plans to your sales outcomes like the SCI does.