A Sales Academy is a hol­istic approach to the train­ing and devel­op­ment of sales teams and aims to raise the stand­ards of per­form­ance through

1. Cla­ri­fy­ing what good looks like: bench­mark­ing indi­vidual per­form­ance and know­ledge through sales com­pet­ency framework.
2. Cre­at­ing train­ing that focus on the needs of the indi­vidu­als rather than one-size-fits-all.
3. Cre­at­ing train­ing that engages the staff and encour­ages high level of participation.
4. Ensur­ing train­ing engages users through know­ledge shar­ing, com­pet­i­tion ele­ments such as leader boards and gami­fic­a­tion tac­tics that enhance development.
5. Gath­er­ing feed­back at logical inter­vals to ensure the integ­rated pro­gramme is ‘owned’ by the sales organisation.
6. Meas­ur­ing res­ults through Return on Invest­ment (ROI).

The start point is to define what good looks like.  Often, the only bench­mark of good within sales is sales tar­gets.  Although achiev­ing sales tar­gets is a vital meas­ure­ment for what good looks like, for com­pan­ies look­ing to grow, develop, attract and retain the best it should not be the only one.

The sales staff need to know ‘how’ they can improve and what key areas of know­ledge and skills would allow them to improve their sales per­form­ance and achieve targets.

Com­pet­en­cies indic­ate clear dir­ec­tion from the organ­isa­tion to the indi­vidual on expec­ted areas and levels of per­form­ance. They provide the indi­vidual with a map show­ing desired beha­viours that will be valu­ated, recog­nised and, in some cases, rewarded.

A Sales Academy con­tains a set of gen­eric com­pet­en­cies that can be customised.

“Why do competency-based sys­tems work?”

The competency-based sys­tem offers the fol­low­ing benefits:

• Clearly defined and meas­ur­able per­form­ance goals
• Fairer and open appraisal and recruit­ment processes
• Clearly con­nec­ted organ­isa­tional and per­sonal objectives
• Meas­ur­able and stand­ard­ised pro­cesses across the organ­isa­tion and globe

“How do I bench­mark know­ledge and skills of my sales staff?”

Typ­ic­ally, sales func­tions should have no more than 12–14 areas. Each com­pet­ency area needs to be spe­cific and meas­ur­able.  The staff are then bench­marked on a score of 1–5 against each com­pet­ency area. For instance,

Nego­ti­ation skills:

1. Fails to nego­ti­ate or accepts the customer’s demands at the expense of their own needs.
2. Attempts to nego­ti­ate but does so at the expense of the rela­tion­ship without gain­ing any sat­is­fact­ory solu­tion. Nego­ti­ations are not dealt with in a timely manner.
3. Uses effect­ive tech­niques to nego­ti­ate and usu­ally does so without min­imal con­flict or dis­pute arising, When Nego­ti­ations take place they are not activ­ity man­aged and there is no agree­ment as to the nego­ti­at­ing arena.
4. Usu­ally nego­ti­ates effect­ively without com­prom­ising their own pos­i­tion too early and recov­ers any poten­tial loss of the rela­tion­ship with the cus­tomer.  Nego­ti­ations are car­ried out in a timely man­ner.  The nego­ti­at­ing arena is clearly artic­u­lated and under­stood and from the incep­tion there is clar­ity as to the ideal outcome.
5. Demon­strates the abil­ity to nego­ti­ate effect­ively in all situ­ations by reach­ing a win-win situ­ation and main­tain­ing the rela­tion­ship with cus­tom­ers through­out the pro­cess.  Is able to isol­ate spe­cif­ics within the nego­ti­ation, com­mu­nic­ates and for­mu­lates the prin­ciples which both parties can agree before enter­ing into the nego­ti­ation, is able to identify and break­down issues and resolves them in their logical sequence.  Finally, fol­lows up with agreed items and actions and executes in a timely man­ner.  Is seen as an expert in this area and is seen as a go-to guy by their colleagues.

Obtain­ing own­er­ship from sales staff and line man­agers is vital in embed­ding sales train­ing pro­grammes.  Involving staff in assess­ing com­pet­en­cies allows them to clearly identify where improve­ments can be made, and they are more likely to ‘buy-in’ to the train­ing solu­tion, as they can clearly see where the gaps lie.

There­fore, bench­mark­ing and assess­ing staff should be done via:

• 360 degree
• Indi­vidual
• Man­ager

Once you have the cla­ri­fic­a­tion on where the key train­ing needs lie, pro­grammes can be put in place to focus on plug­ging the gaps.

If you’re going to do it, make it worth some­thing! This is where accred­it­a­tion really comes into it!  If you are going to train the sales staff, make them proud of the train­ing. They have got to really want to do it.  Make them to go home and tell their part­ners they are being inves­ted in, that they are on a train­ing pro­gramme that will help them enhance their career.  Mak­ing train­ing come with a nation­ally recog­nised qual­i­fic­a­tion is invalu­able in achiev­ing this ‘halo’ engage­ment and where pos­sible should be encouraged.

Cre­at­ing a blen­ded train­ing programme

Train­ing inter­ven­tions should be cost effect­ive and have high impact. Classroom-based train­ing is vital for PRACTISING skills, but it is not vital to teach new pro­cesses or know­ledge. In these areas eLearn­ing can be used to ensure that when sales staff are off the road, they prac­tise and dis­cuss new skills to learn the know­ledge behind the struc­ture.  So in the case of Nego­ti­ation, teach them the frame­work for pre­par­ing and deliv­er­ing a good nego­ti­ation then get them to prac­tise nego­ti­ation through shorter high impact workshops.

Using eLearn­ing as part of a blen­ded train­ing programme

To engage sales staff, train­ing should have a clear ‘What’s in it for me?’ They should be rel­ev­ant to their roles and help explore know­ledge through their own sales environment.

Tra­di­tional eLearn­ing con­cen­trates on know­ledge deliv­ery: Learner’s involve­ment is sought through click-and-reveal activ­it­ies and some quiz thrown in for knowledge-check. Often it is e-telling than eLearning.

Good train­ing in classroom or web focuses on learner’s jour­ney.  Mak­ing learner draw examples from their own work life and apply it to the con­cepts dis­cussed help them grasp it more eas­ily.  It ensures the learn­ing jour­ney is rel­ev­ant, per­sonal and useful.

Using tech­no­logy to man­age your Sales Academy

The Sales Academy employs tech­no­logy to do more.  Com­pan­ies can util­ise the plat­form to:

• Assess staff online and report and bench­mark results
• Auto­mate the pro­cess of deliv­er­ing eLearn­ing content
• Sched­ule classroom training
• Test know­ledge
• Share train­ing and other content
• Assess know­ledge uplift online and cer­tify participation
• Con­duct sur­vey and cap­ture feedback

Using tech­no­logy to embed train­ing and trans­form sales culture

Train­ing should be con­tinu­ally rein­forced. A recent sur­vey by Huth­waite Inter­na­tional[1] found that 87% of classroom based learn­ing is lost after 30 days.  So DON’T just deliver classroom train­ing, because it’s a waste of money. Train­ing must be rein­forced con­tinu­ally with tests, quizzes, encour­aging sales staff to share war stor­ies, and uploaded case stud­ies.  Train­ing should instil a change of cul­ture.  This cul­ture change will not take root unless its rein­forced, con­tinu­ally dis­cussed among the staff and involved staff in the process.

To keep learners engaged they should be inspired to share and be recog­nised for their learn­ing. The staff need a sense of achieve­ment.  Cre­at­ing a com­pet­i­tion within the sales team is an ideal way to embed the cul­ture change.

A Sales Academy achieves this by the following:

• Levels: bring in pacing, status and ‘unlocks’. Levels punc­tu­ate the action and unlock opportunities.
• Rewards: encourage reg­u­lar par­ti­cip­a­tion as they are earned as a dir­ect res­ult of inter­ac­tion with eLearn­ing mod­ules. They reflect per­sist­ency and skill.
• War stor­ies and experience: suggests qual­ity, repu­ta­tion, and influ­ence, and marks pro­gress, reflects mas­tery and skill. They can be used to reward loy­alty and fre­quency, and drives ‘gatherer’ com­pet­i­tion too.
• Leader boards intro­duce pub­lic, vis­ible pro­gress and achieve­ment, and reflect qual­ity, repu­ta­tion, and influ­ence. They show­case your most skilled and devoted learners, and drive ‘hunter‘ competition.

You can’t man­age what you don’t measure

There is no point rolling out a sales improve­ment pro­gramme if you don’t meas­ure the results.

How does Sales Academy help meas­ure the results?

The Sales Academy assesses the suc­cess of the pro­gramme in four stages, in line with the fam­ous Kirk­patrick Model^©, pion­eered by Don­ald Kirk­patrick. The four stages are:

• Feed­back: How good was the pro­gramme? Feed­back on the train­ing needs to feed into the Academy’s internal con­veyer belt, which con­tinu­ously absorbs sug­ges­tions and improves 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 eval­u­ation and not for any certification.
• Beha­viour: How improved are the learner’s skills? Train­ing is only effect­ive if it affects pos­it­ive beha­viour. The assess­ment comes from how the train­ing has changed beha­viour, as observed and assessed by col­leagues or a line manager.
• 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.