by Susanne Conrad
Developing effective customer-facing employees and equipping
them with the tools to succeed in today’s complex business environment - in other words, developing a "business manger" - is
paramount to being both competitive and profitable. Unfortunately, many
attempts to do this fail to deliver the desired results because they are
missing a key component: basing development on objective data regarding what the customer really
cares about.
Despite there being a number of informative studies on sales
force skills and capabilities, the vast majority of these are historic
analyses. Few of them look to future requirements – and yet the future is at
the very heart of planning sales development. Why train employees on what was
important in the past or only for today? Why not look to the future to see what
customers want next year or two to three years from now? Why not prepare
employees for those requirements now and gain the competitive edge by ensuring
their readiness for the challenges and opportunities of the future?
Interestingly, very few studies include direct input from
customers but rely, instead, strictly on input from manufacturer organizations.
Such information cannot be considered totally objective, nor does it identify
divergences in perspective between manufacturers and retailers. In the words of
a retailer participant, “They assume they know what I want because they talk to
me often. If they really want to know what’s important to me, ask me that
directly.”
Ideally, organization should consider these elements when identifying a curriculum for sales reps:
What
is important to manufacturer and retailer (customer) – now and in the future?
How
well are we performing – the company's perspective vs. the customer's perspective?
What are the trends in importance and performance across time - in other words, are we doing the right things or do we need to change direction?
One way (a cost-free way at that!) to fill your information gap and allow your
organization to develop solid, forward-looking sales force development
strategies is to participate in DHC's ongoing Sales Force of the Future Study (SFOTF). Take advantage of trending DHC has been collecting since 2002. Check it out - there's a lot of great (and, yes, free) information: Sales Force of the Future Study
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