SMT: Center for Sales Excellence

Your favorite game - the key to your style?

Remember that conversation in Pretty Woman where Edward and his lawyer were discussing their favorite childhood game? Edward liked building blocks (he ends up ditching a huge business profit so he can build ships) and his lawyer liked Monopoly (he lives for the financial kill). Yes, the games we gravitate toward are aligned with our experience, strengths and personal styles.

Our challenge when developing "games" for L&D programs is to develop interesting learning activities. But can those "games" inhibit learning as well? Of course, they can.

I recall a situation where a non-training subject matter expert (I note his background only to illustrate that it's not something the lay person usually thinks about) came up with an activity he thought would be extremely effective but fell flat. The activity was a fairly simple role play in which some participants role played a sales call while others acted as the "buyer". The problem was that many participants were so new to sales that they had no idea how a buyer would act or respond. Their level of discomfort was so strong that a few refused to play their parts. Others did such a poor job that learning was minimal. The situation was easily resolved by bringing in a few seasoned reps for the activity to act as buyers.

The point is simply that we need to take into consideration that because we, the developers of L&D games, may find the game extremely worthwhile, interesting and engaging, we must always consider it from the participant's perspective.

THE QUESTION FOR YOU
What advice can you share relative to creating audience-appropriate games and activities?

Developing a Business Manager rather than a Sales Rep

 
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

How do you define a Business Manager vs. a Sales Person?

by Susanne Conrad
 
Following on to the last topic, virtually every one of my clients is focused on re-developing their sales people to be business managers. The benefits to companies is pretty clear - better bottom line results. I often hear, "Our customers want sales people to be business managers with the skills, abilities and knowledge to grow our business and theirs."

A fine concept! But putting this into practice is difficult. The first thing that comes to mind is how we define a "business manager" as opposed to a "sales person." The definition is of critical importance for those of us in L&D: we need to build a curriculum aimed at developing these people, so we need to know what the end result - the "business manager"- looks like.

We need to have very precise conversations with sales management about the skills, abilities and knowledge they believe are necessary. This conversation needs to be well-planned to draw out the information we need at a tactical level - a strategic, general statement of "we want business managers" is good directionally, but we need to know what sales management wants that's different from what they have now.

Here are a few of the key questions that need to be answered:

• What specific results/measures does sales management want to see that are different from what they currently get?
• Are the goals/objectives different for business managers vs. sales people? If so, how?
• What is the difference in the role of the business manager vs. a sales person?
• What specific things would a business manager do/do differently from a sales person?
• Do business managers have different responsibilities? Do they have different authority?
• What do they need to know that is currently lacking?
• What skills and abilities will allow them to get the different results desired? Do they have them? if not, what are the gaps?

THE QUESTION FOR YOU
What else would you include in a conversation with sales management aimed at defining a "business manager"?