Fortune 1000 Spotlight A MILLION DOLLAR HAND OFF By Leo Jakobson, ljakobson@ntmllc.com Photography by Art Carrillo T he first thing an NFL team has to do in order to win the Super Bowl is to get their hands on the ball. For any company that uses a sales channel to sell its products, the game is a little different. It has to get its products into the hands of the sales reps—and convince them to run with it. That’s a two-pronged strategy involving training and motivation. Motorola did just that with a group of Sprint sales reps, who participated in its sales/training program with the grand prize being a trip to Super Bowl XLIII. The “Motorola and Sprint Training Incentive” program was designed by West Chicago, IL-based Aspen Marketing Services to increase both the sale of Motorola mobile phones in Sprint Nextel stores and the number of salespeople in those stores who complete training on the latest Motorola models. Motorola’s goal was to have 20 percent of the slightly more than 5,000 eligible Sprint sales reps in three targeted regions actively participate. In fact, nearly 1,850 completed the three training modules and associated role-playing exercises, passed AN AGGRESSIVE SALES TRAINING PROGRAM KEPT MOBILE-HANDSET MAKER MOTOROLA CONNECTED TO ITS SALES NETWORK 34 I SM I May 2010 I SuccessfulMeetings.comhttp://www.SuccessfulMeetings.com