Before we get into introducing the Sales Academy, you need to know why one needs an Academy like that. Some might be thinking that they know everything that needs to be known about sales, and some might be wondering what is there to ‘learn’ about sales because it’s an art and not a skill: Either you’re born a salesman or you’re not. A small minority may even cynically scoff at the idea of wasting their time in training instead of being ‘out there’, selling.

All these statements may largely be true.  But then, like they say about Pink Floyd concerts, you don’t know what you missed if you haven’t been there. For starters, Sales Academy does not teach you how to sell, because it believes you know that already. In fact it doesn’t even believe it ‘teaches’. The very word ‘teach’ is anathema to Growth Engineering. It is an oxymoron for a training company, is it not? Read on.

What is Sales Academy?

Growth Engineering’s Sales Academy is a development platform. It believes in developing sales people, enhancing performance, lifting up your graph northwards. Of course, it does train on all areas of sales. Last time we checked, we haven’t left anything out, but then we’re constantly on the alert. However, these training programmes are not just ‘dispensed’ as knowledge accumulation. You use it as your personal dashboard like your personal Yoda Master where you can bounce ideas, argue, discuss, take notes and, in this joyful process, also learn. So the next question is, how does it work?

How does Sales Academy work?

When you enter the Academy, it will present a set of competencies to understand your needs. Then you receive a Development Passport. This is your plan, which may include several training – we hate to use this word though – requirements. These training programmes will be more of interesting collaborative exercises rather than ‘teaching’ sessions. The eLearning sessions will be participatory and you will be actively engaged in them. Post these sessions, you will receive assessments which, you will be relieved to know, are not multiple-choice questions to test your knowledge but actual assignments which will go back and do at your workplace, often in consultation with your manager. You will then be assessed based on your performance, either at work or in the assignment.

How does Sales Academy assess?

Sales Academy assesses your ‘development’ in four stages, in line with the famous Kirkpatrick Model^©, pioneered by Donald Kirkpatrick. The four stages are:

• Feedback: How good was the programme? Sales Academy is a dynamic environment. Your feedback on the training feeds into the Academy’s internal conveyer belt, which continuously absorbs suggestions and improvises its content and deliverance.
• Learning: How effective was the learning? There is only one way of assessing this: by a quiz, which is for used your own evaluation and not for any certification.
• Behaviour: How improved are the learner’s skills? Sales Academy believes that any training is effective only if it effects in positive behaviour.  Therefore, your assessment actually comes from how the training has changed your behaviour, as observed and assessed by you or your manager. Often your team members too can add to the assessment along with your manager, making it 360°.
• Results: How beneficial was it to the business? Any training should have a business goal and organisations goals are often profitability, monetary or otherwise. So how have your training translated into organisational benefits? This is Return on Investment, ROI, which is the fourth and most important stage in the assessment.

How different is Sales Academy?

The actual question is, why go with us? Arguably, we are the only training provider who believe in ‘development’ rather than ‘teaching’. We focus on learner’s active engagement by:

• Capturing ‘The Way We Do Things Here’; not insisting on knowledge imposition
• Recognising and celebrating learner’s achievements, through Badges, Awards, Rising Stars
• Creating champions and not ‘trained’ staff
• Involving managers and groups in training, thereby making the personal development more collaborative
• Inculcating the culture of continual development

These are the benefits for the learner but the Sales Academy equally focuses on organisational development. Sales Academy achieves this by

• Including Net Promoter Score (NPS) for overall improvement
• Facilitating the measure of Return on Investment (ROI)
• Offering Performance Management tools for managers to assess and compare their team
• Providing various assessment options, behavioural, psychometric and knowledge

In a nutshell

Growth Engineering’s Sales Academy is a ground-breaking flagship product that sets a completely new benchmark for training development and assessment. It meets the needs of both the individual learner and the organisation as a whole. It believes that the purpose of corporate adult learning should be towards increased organisational effectiveness, which should result in tangible monetary benefits. It trains, measures, assesses, engages, and even entertains. So, next time someone questions why they need online sales training, pardon their ignorance, for they have not seen Growth Engineering’s Sales Academy.