Training Industry Magazine - Winter 2022 - 47

increasing
knowledge,
enhancing
sales performance and helping sellers
adapt to change.
Step 1: Define Excellence
" Excellence " goes beyond whether a
seller makes or misses their number.
It can be quantified beyond just the
revenue outcome. To achieve this, sales
leaders must first clearly understand
and define their ideal rep profile, which
can be organized into three buckets:
* Inherent attributes, such as whether
the seller is a good negotiator or
strong communicator.
* Trackable behaviors that can be tied to
training, such as scores on messaging
or presentation delivery.
* Individual seller metrics, such as
revenue goals, sales cycle length or
customer satisfaction.
Step 2: Build Knowledge
The second step in the path to sales
readiness is to build seller knowledge.
Training programs shouldn't be a oneand-done
endeavor. Building knowledge
must be an ongoing discipline aimed at
developing mastery of skills, not just
memorizing messaging and passing
tests. Three components exist to build
knowledge effectively. They are:
* Defined skill sets, such as product
knowledge, deal negotiation,
forecasting and message delivery.
sales
* Engagement mechanics, which
include a diverse set of tools (like
role-play
exercises,
social
sharing
and quick quizzes) to keep the seller
interested.
* Spaced reinforcement, which involves
revisiting topics periodically to
strengthen and fortify knowledge and
ensure it's not forgotten.
Step 3: Align Content
Next is building a process to deliver sales
content just in time. The buyer journey
isn't linear - therefore, content that's
planned out in advance isn't always
applicable. Sellers will only use the
content that helps them in the moment
to advance a deal. For that reason, a
seller's " readiness " can be helped along
For sellers to survive and thrive in the
dynamic and ever-changing B2B selling
environment, L&D must focus on helping
them achieve business outcomes.
with a system that is organized by the
type of content that works for them in
that context.
For example, evaluation content -
either technical or specific to a product
or service - helps guide customers to
the right decision. Objection content
helps sellers to clear hurdles that are
blocking a deal from moving forward.
Value content uses case studies or
ROI analyses to illustrate top-line
improvements or bottom-line savings.
Step 4: Analyze Performance
The fourth step critical to achieving
sales readiness is the ability to analyze
seller performance - understanding
how a seller achieved their goal and
quantifying it through their behaviors in
the sales process. This is where a new
breed of conversational intelligence
tools come into play. These tools
leverage
AI and machine
learning
to provide sales leaders insight into
what's happening in the field, and
tie that back to competencies that
were or weren't achieved from an
enablement standpoint.
Forrester found that the biggest
limitation
to
sales
utilizing
process
AI
activities
sales
technologies to gain deeper visibility
into
was
capturing a high enough percentage
of the interactions between sellers and
buyers. Voice represents 42% of these
interactions pre-COVID and 57% postCOVID
according to Forrester's sales
activity studies of more than 25,000
B2B sales professionals. Conversation
intelligence tools integrated with sales
readiness platforms do exist today to
bring real-world selling interactions to
the training process.
TRAINING INDUSTRY MAGAZINE - WINTER 2022 I WWW.TRAININGINDUSTRY.COM/MAGAZINE
Step 5: Optimize Behaviors
The final step
in achieving sales
readiness is optimizing seller behavior
through coaching. Coaching closes
the loop in sales readiness, ensuring
feedback makes it back to individual
sellers as well as informing and enriching
the entire readiness program. There
are four key coaching interactions that
should be harnessed in this step:
* Manager-to-seller interactions, which
include pitch assessments and deal
remediation.
* Manager-to-team interactions, which
include daily communications to
discuss account targeting and territory
management.
* Seller-to-seller interactions, offering
peer feedback and opportunities for
content sharing and pitch review.
* Manager-to-manager
interactions
( " coaching the coaches " ), which
involves analyzing team trends and
collaborating on how to troubleshoot
problem areas.
Final Thoughts
For sellers to survive and thrive in
the dynamic and ever-changing B2B
selling environment, L&D must focus
on helping them achieve business
outcomes. It must include continuous
skills reinforcement, training, field
observation and coaching to make
sure sellers are ready to make the
most of every sales interaction.
Chris Lynch is the chief marketing officer
at Mindtickle. He oversees all global
marketing functions, including product
marketing, demand gen,
brand and
creative. Email Chris.
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Training Industry Magazine - Winter 2022

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