Training for Sales Enablement Success

I’m publishing a series of Q&A excerpts from my interviews with Sales 2.0 leaders. This is the third of three excerpts from my interview with Sharon Little, former director of field marketing communications for VMware.

Anneke: VMware revamped new-hire and ongoing training — what you call “event-based enablement” — for your global sales force. What programs have you implemented, and what are the important lessons you’ve learned?

Sharon: Just last year, we rolled out Rainmaker Academy. This program launched in 16 cities during a four-week period. Lesson No. 1 is don’t schedule training in August. Europeans, in particular, don’t like that! I’d also recommend more than six weeks to plan the content. What did work is leveraging a high-engagement/guided-learning approach, which includes grouping participants at small tables and facilitating discussions of case studies, problem-solving and the like. Also critical to our approach was completing a beta of the class with field representatives prior to rollout. We were able to make adjustments and ensure the class was tailored to the field audience.

Anneke: What are your ongoing training programs?

Sharon: Aside from local training, virtual kickoffs and tech summits, we do annual kickoffs, where we build on Rainmaker Academy. Since a live event for 3,000 people is a significant investment, we must ensure we deliver value, so the content is incredibly important. We include intensive product, solution and skills-based sessions. There is never enough time on the schedule to do everything we’d like, so hard decisions have to be made about what is included and what is delivered post-event.

Anneke: What is your onboarding training process?

Sharon: We combine CBT (computer-based training) and classroom experience with an emphasis on experiential learning, culture and new learning techniques. Our philosophy is that any instructor-led training should be highly interactive. We are developing a two-year curriculum that will include certifications and, over time, we hope to integrate our onboarding and overall field curriculum into our enablement platform.

Anneke: How are you measuring the impact of training on sales productivity? Are you reducing ramp-up time?

Sharon: We are working on the metrics and putting the discipline in place to measure this over time. We want to know if we are shortening the time to full quota performance. My objective is to provide a modular, scalable global onboarding framework that reduces the sales reps’ time ramp to productivity. Other key metrics include retention rates and rate of certification among employees during their first two years of employment.

Anneke: You got some great results from an innovative program called Vision Camp. Will you describe it?

Sharon: This is an event I created based on a hallway conversation between our CEO and EVP of field operations. We took 35 of our top global performers from the field and worked with them for two days to create a consistent sales presentation, or “vision,” for the CIO buyer. This was a high-profile event, with participation by our CEO, CMO, CSO and business-unit leaders — truly the brightest minds in the company. We effectively reverse-engineered and deconstructed the expert content and held a team “pitch” competition, which we videotaped. We also set specific, measurable goals for attendees: to make 100 CIO/CTO-level presentations that quarter (while making their numbers) and to “pay it forward” by involving colleagues or other members of their sales team. Our aim was to promote early results and package a succinct “vision pitch” for use by the entire sales organization. This program has gone a long way to create excitement in the sales force. The attendees have performed beyond our expectations and have become true evangelists. The re-engineered pitch is getting great response from C-level buyers.

Let’s get some discussion going!  What are you doing to reach C-level buyers?  How does your organization measure the effectiveness of training?

Read the full interview with Sharon Little in the Resources section of this website.

Tags: computer based training, enablement content, enablement ROI, event-based enablement, marketing, Metrics, onboarding training, Rainmaker Academy, Sales 2.0, sales enablement, sales enablement tools, sales process, training, validate tools, video training, Vision Camp, vision pitch

Video and Playbooks for Sales Enablement

I’m publishing a series of Q&A excerpts from my interviews with Sales 2.0 leaders. This is the second of three excerpts from my interview with Sharon Little, former director of field marketing communications for VMware.

Anneke: Everyone I talk to is excited about the potential of video content. How are you incorporating video into your portal?

Sharon: We’ve noticed video has really taken off in the past year. Within VM Vault, we’ve created VM Video Vault, which is based on technology from Altus. All content is searchable by spoken word and can be downloaded to a phone or other mobile device. This creates a great training tool. It’s very beneficial when learning a pitch to see someone else give the presentation. Our non-English-speaking reps appreciate the ability to read the words and view materials at the same time.

One of our sales VPs for a newly acquired technology recently recorded a video that was viewed by 750 people. This was a very effective way to transfer her knowledge to them and build traction with the new technology.

Anneke: Any words of advice for implementing video programs — or challenges you’ve encountered?

Sharon: Historically, one of the challenges with video is bringing in a $10,000 video crew every time you want to shoot something. That’s not scalable, even for a company with a generous budget. We learned that reps are OK with a lower-quality video for training purposes. We have experimented with low-cost Flip cameras and portable tripods. These videos can be turned around in a couple of days without having to call in the professionals … and the price is right.

Anneke: Let’s talk about something else that has a lot of buzz: plays and playbooks. You recently asked us, at Phone Works, to create these for your inside sales organization. What are they all about?

Sharon: Playbooks provide content customized to specific buying scenarios or campaigns. They are particularly useful when you want the sales force to customize to the buyer, the product, the stage of the sales cycle. They guide reps step-by-step through their daily workflow: from pre-call research, to call/online strategy and objectives, to systems use, to competitive selling (which we call “Fight Plans”). Playbooks provide actionable, consumable information and make the sales process consistent, measurable and scalable. And they are integrated with salesforce.com, our CRM system, so a rep can access them directly from a lead or opportunity.

Anneke: Any adoption issues with playbooks?

Sharon: We validate new playbooks with selected field and inside reps, before we roll them out, to make sure they include what Sales needs to close a sale for a particular product or solution. Adoption is streamlined, because field needs are already incorporated into the deliverable. Plus everyone who provided input also acts as a sponsor when a new playbook is rolled out.

Anneke: Do you have any metrics showing that playbooks — or other enablement-content programs — increase sales?

Sharon: It’s very difficult to tie bookings to a single tool or training effort, and it can be a trap to attempt to show ROI on every enablement deliverable. At the same time, success metrics — both objective and subjective — should be created for all enablement efforts, with the understanding that it is not always possible to show a direct cause-and-effect relationship.

What about your organization?  What new opportunities and challenges have you experienced using video?  Have you been able to measure the effectiveness of your sales playbooks?

Read the full interview with Sharon Little in the Resources section of this website.

Tags: enablement content, enablement ROI, inside sales, marketing, marketing and sales alignment, Metrics, playbooks, plays, Sales 2.0, sales and marketing alignment, sales enablement, sales enablement tools, sales playbooks, sales process, step-by-step, validate tools, video content, video training

Defining Sales Enablement

I’m publishing a series of Q&A excerpts from my interviews with Sales 2.0 leaders. This is the first of three excerpts from my interview with Sharon Little, director of field marketing communications for VMware.

Anneke: You have a mission statement for your sales enablement group. What is it?

Sharon: To deliver high-value consumable information that builds competency, drives culture and enables performance for the field.

Anneke: Isn’t that Marketing’s job? What’s the difference between what your group does and what Marketing does?

Sharon: We do the translation and packaging of information created by Marketing and other sources. Our job is to make that content prettier and more actionable for the sales team. For any content, we can determine what’s missing and fill in the pieces to make information worthy of the sales person’s time.

Anneke: What’s the difference between Sales Enablement and Sales Operations?

Sharon: In my view, Sales Operations sits between Finance and Sales, while Sales Enablement is the liaison between Marketing and Sales. Sales Operations works on behalf of Finance on things such as budgets, compensation plans, metrics and technology to make sales people more productive. I believe that, over time, Sales Enablement will provide the same service for Marketing.

Anneke: What are the most important words of advice you’d give sales executives looking to implement a sales enablement program?

Sharon: I would start by asking them to open up their perspective on how they view sales enablement. This is about transformation — not just training, communications and kickoff. Every sales leader must be thinking about how to prepare their teams for the next hurdle — a well-articulated sales enablement operation is strategic on many levels. At a minimum, sales leaders must insist that programs and tools be consumable, actionable and easily absorbed by the sales team, and in a format that can be put to use with a customer immediately, without hours of modification. Equally important, they should be integrated and aligned with the rest of the tools the sales organization uses on a regular basis. They should tie together, support each other and just make sense. I call this, “The golden thread of sales enablement.”

I truly believe that, five years from now, every sales executive will insist on having an experienced sales enablement team at his or her disposal. Sales enablement is the key to solving sales and marketing alignment issues, and it is the lever sales leaders need to drive performance. Sales operations measures what you are doing and predicts future performance. Sales enablement makes it actionable.

Read the full interview with Sharon Little in the Resources section of this website.

Tags: actionable content, content, marketing and sales alignment, marketing communications, marketing materials, Sales, Sales 2.0, sales and marketing alignment, sales enablement, sales enablement tools, sales materials, sales operations, sales process, sales programs, sales support, sales tools, sales training

Current Customers – the Key to New Customers.

Guest Blog by Cindy Fahrner, Phone Works Engagement Manager

Cindy was a quota-busting sales professional in her own right before joining Phone Works, where she has helped numerous companies pilot, implement and accelerate inside sales teams, achieving such success that many have been subsequently acquired because of their technology and sales performance – companies including Global Sight, Caw Networks and ClosedLoop. On behalf of Phone Works, Cindy is currently working with The Grossman Group on an inside sales calling pilot. She recently took a short break from her typically jam-packed schedule to attend the Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco and came away “refreshed, rejuvenated and full of innovative ideas to share.” We asked her to reflect on some of what she learned.

Wow! Where to start? I took away a lot of information about new and exciting tools that will ratchet up today’s Sales 2.0 processes. I loved the session by Executive VP Dave Fitzgerald, of Brainshark, challenging us to ask, “Is Your Sales 2.0 Platform Mobile-Ready?” But I think I’ll focus this post on a recurring theme from the conference that led to a very practical takeaway we can all implement today.

The recurring theme? Buyers are more educated than ever. OK, this is not news…the Internet has been around for years now and access to information is nothing new. But, what has intensified is the use of Twitter and Facebook to obtain colleague/counterpart recommendations. Buyers are turning to these resources to get quick recommendations for their buying decisions from people they know and trust.

Playing off that trend was this intriguing idea from the Peer-Powered Sales & Marketing session, moderated by Focus Expert Network (Moderator: Craig Rosenberg, Leader, Focus Expert Network, Focus.com. Panelists: Carlos Hidalgo, CEO, The Annuitas Group; Steve Gershik, CEO, 28Marketing; and Adam B. Needles, VP Demand Generation Strategy, Left Brain Marketing). The suggestion was this – to bring existing customers’ successes, ideas and learnings into your sales process to serve as voices of experience for your product – not just at the end of the sales cycle, as we commonly do, but early on to fill this “recommender” role.

If your company or product is early in the market, customer input is even more vital to help mitigate prospective buyers’ understandable wariness. It’s the ‘safety in numbers’ thing. Having colleagues make the same buying decision reduces the risk of perception that they may have made a risky decision.

How to turn customers into recommenders
There was some discussion about how to involve customers effectively. Here are some of the ideas that were batted around:

• Integrate client input in content, such as webinars and videos
• Ask clients to join discussion panels
• Invite them to post on your blog
• Encourage clients to join your fan page, and post links on their Facebook pages
• Incorporate clients in your sales training, so your reps can hear how your product or service alleviated their pain

A bit more challenging was the concept of inviting customers to join sales calls. I’m not sold on the reality of this one, yet. Most of our customers are pretty busy at their core jobs.

Still, when you think about it, people like to showcase their success. Why not take advantage of this? Inviting your customers to talk to your prospects gives them a platform to present to their peers how they were able to identify and resolve a problem. At the same time, they get to exchange ideas with their counterparts.

Bottom line, it’s time to start thinking about how current customers can become a part of the sales process – from the early stages on. We know our prospects are out there doing their research before we get to them. Let’s increase the likelihood of being included in a product or service selection by having our successful customers talk about us.

I’d like to hear from you. How are you integrating current customers into your sales process?

Tags: buying decisions, colleague recommendations, counterpart recommendations, customer showcase, existing clients, existing customers, new customers, peer recommendations, peer-powered sales, Sales 2.0, sales calls, sales process

Top 4 Sales 2.0 Initiatives for Q3 & Q4

Companies are emerging from their mid-year planning meetings having evaluated their sales performance for the first half of the year, and sales managers are resetting priorities for the third and fourth quarters. In Phone Works’ consulting work with large and small companies across industries, we are observing some trends.

Here are the top four Sales 2.0 initiatives we’re seeing for the second half of 2010:

1. Closer Analysis of Sales Cycle Metrics and Conversions

Sales 2.0 managers are realizing that measuring only revenue is not enough if they really want to improve sales performance. They are defining, measuring and analyzing sales cycle steps — based on how their buyers buy — and they’re getting a better grip on forecasts, and well as a clearer understanding of where both their teams and individual reps need help.

2. Alignment of Sales and Marketing

Whether they call it “closed loop,” “demand to close” or “click to cash,” Sales 2.0 leaders are attempting to work more closely with their marketing peers to integrate the functions. Their goals are to agree on the best-qualified prospect profiles, engage the right buyers, track and measure the results and ROI of lead generation marketing programs, and determine hand-off processes from marketing to sales — and vice versa, if a buyer isn’t ready to make a purchasing decision and is better served through a lead nurturing program.

3. Scrutiny of Technology ROI

Amid all the promise of Sales 2.0 technologies, many Sales 2.0 companies are getting smarter about determining the impact of technology on their sales results. In some cases, managers who previously implemented systems in hopes of a quick fix are now revisiting adoption and rollout plans and analyzing their sales processes to see where technology can accelerate or improve their sales. By establishing before and after metrics, Sales 2.0 managers can better justify what can be substantial investments in time and money associated with new technology purchases.

4. Creative New Ways to Engage Prospects

It is getting increasingly difficult to get the attention of our overworked, overstimulated buyers, who are being bombarded by marketing campaigns and sales calls in multiple media. We know personal, timely messages that are relevant to our prospects are the only ones getting through, but even these carefully crafted e-mails or voice mails can be lost in sheer volume of messages in the average business decision maker’s inbox. Sales 2.0 professionals are experimenting by sending personal notes by snail mail; including videos in e-mail; posting comments on prospects’ blogs; reaching out via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — anything to stand out from the crowd and get a response.

Have you redefined your sales priorities? What are YOUR key initiatives for the second half of 2010?

Tags: Engagement, marketing and sales alignment, Sales 2.0, sales process