May 10th, 2013
Category Archives: Sales Training
The concept and practice of engaging people for business through games is not new. Marketing experts point to airline frequent flyer mile programs as an early form of gamification aimed at consumers. As for employees, pilots practicing and honing their skills using flight simulators is a good example of how training can be gamified.
2013 Social Media in Sales Survey: What’s Being Used and With What Success?
Social media sites have become a pervasive part of our society, in both our personal and professional lives. It’s nearly impossible to remain truly disconnected and off the grid.
According to Facebook, there were more than a billion active users of the social networking platform in December 2012. (For context, if recent estimates are close, there are now over seven billion people on the planet.) Granted, those Facebook accounts are both individual and organizational, but the keyword in the stat isn’t the number as much as the word “active.”
March 8th, 2013
When Business Processes Change, Minimize the Impact on Sales
When Business Processes Change, Minimize the Impact on Sales
Businesses are complex and require constant attention to remain competitive, profitable, and productive. That quest often leads to change, which can be targeted to specific parts of an organization or be company-wide.
Any change will likely be disruptive, but that’s to be expected and hopefully minimized. The greater concern comes when companies introduce changes to one part of the business without fully exploring the impact on other areas, including sales.
An Expert’s Perspective on Lead Generation and Executive Appointment Setting
A recent study by CSO Insights revealed that capturing new accounts is the top objective for sales leaders over the next 12 months. Upon reading this, I thought back on one of the best presentations that I ever attended on the topic of lead generation and executive appointment setting. Ironically, it was at the 2011 Inbound Marketing Summit. I’ve been a practitioner of content marketing and inbound lead generation for years, but I’ve always been very skeptical of the idea that outbound prospecting is dead. We all know how annoying it can be to get stalked by overly aggressive sales reps that have no clue about what you really need. However, there has to be some middle ground.
February 27th, 2013
What the World of Selling Can Learn from Watching Netflix
What the World of Selling Can Learn from Watching Netflix
In the new world of selling the ability to see into the future to recognize the needs that customers have not identified or have undervalued is the new currency. But, is that really possible?
February 25th, 2013
How Gamification of Sales Training Boosts Rep Engagement and Increases Ability to Recall
How Gamification of Sales Training Boosts Rep Engagement and Increases Ability to Recall - (Part 3 of 3)
- Today’s BLOG is written by Richardson’s partner, Duncan Lennox, CEO of Qstream
In my previous two posts, I presented the problem of sales reps falling victim to The Forgetting Curve and the solution of using a tool such as Richardson’s QuickCheckTM as a means to help sales reps commit what they’ve learned in training to their long-term memory. Let’s take a closer look at how it works and some of the benefits of using the QuickCheckTM after training your reps.
February 21st, 2013
Spacing, Testing, and Feedback: Essential Ingredients to Sustain Sales Training Impact
Spacing, Testing, and Feedback: Essential Ingredients to Sustain Sales Training Impact – (Part 2 of 3)
- Today’s BLOG is written by Richardson’s partner, Duncan Lennox, CEO of Qstream
When you invest in training your sales reps, you expect them to learn the new information, use the new skills, and adopt the new behaviors. However, as I outlined in my previous post, most people quickly forget what they learn in a matter of days. How, then, can you improve your sales reps’ ability to recall and, as a result, also improve the ROI of your sales training and move closer to the goals you set out to achieve through the training?
February 18th, 2013
Help Your Sales Reps Move from “The Forgetting Curve” to “Total Recall”
Help Your Sales Reps Move from “The Forgetting Curve” to “Total Recall” (Part 1 of 3)
- Today’s BLOG is written by Richardson’s partner, Duncan Lennox, CEO of Qstream
How long until your sales reps forget what they learned at your sales kick-off meeting and training events?
Most people can sing along to their favorite songs from their youth without even thinking about it yet still forget information they read, heard, or learned after just a few days. Knowing that the ability to recall is limited, why then do companies still structure training and learning programs in a manner that takes sales reps offline for a period of time, immerses them deep in new ideas and behaviors, and then send them back out into the field expecting that it all sunk in and is being applied without fail?
February 13th, 2013
12 Business Needs for Customized Sales Training
12 Business Needs for Customized Sales Training
In my role, I spend a lot of time surveying the sales effectiveness market, interviewing buyers, and examining and articulating the need for organizations to customize sales training. We believe that customized sales training that leverages a company’s unique strengths combined with leadership that is ready, able, and willing to support and sustain change are the essential elements for improving sales performance. This is our core business, and we want to continue to excel at it for our clients and partners. Consider our approach:
January 30th, 2013
What Does Customized Sales Training Really Mean, and Why Does It Matter?
What Does Customized Sales Training Really Mean, and Why Does It Matter?
Amy Smalfus, Richardson Senior Instructional Designer, contributed to this article.
Last week, we won a very competitive and hard-fought deal. The difference came down to our ability to deliver a customized sales training solution for the client that fit their exact needs. Many sales training companies claim that they provide customized sales training programs, but from our experience, this ranges from superficial changes (logo and a few words) to off-the-shelf content to ground-up development. I’d like to paint a picture of what customization means to us and explain why it is so important.
January 28th, 2013
Sustaining Change Management: A Deeper Dive into ADKAR
Sustaining Change Management: A Deeper Dive into ADKAR
When we help a client invest in sales training, we know that they’re not merely interested in producing a successful event for their employees. They want the training to drive a greater change within the team, function, or organization. The training itself is merely the tip of the iceberg — the greater challenge is to influence a lasting change beyond the sales training.
January 17th, 2013
17 Guiding Rules for Giving Developmental Feedback
17 Rules for Giving Developmental Feedback
As business and sales leaders, we all know the importance of giving developmental feedback to our people. As we’ve mentioned in earlier articles, developmental feedback is a gift that many leaders find hard to give, but when done properly, it can make a huge difference in the performance of individuals and the organization. Here’s a quick list of some important guiding rules for giving developmental feedback that support the coaching process.
How to Make Sales Training More “Sticky” and Drive Sustainable Behavior Change
Is your sales training “sticky?” It should be, but for many companies, it is not.
Companies invest heavily in sales training to improve their people and processes. Business leaders want to affect a change through training that will impact their business through new skills, knowledge, and behaviors. Committing to training employees and sales reps is often a significant investment of time, money, and lost opportunity. So it should be no surprise that sales leaders want and expect to see a return on that investment.
December 27th, 2012
Selling Different in 2013
Steve Jobs made history with his Think Different ad campaign when Apple was in trouble and being pegged as a toy. The script for the Apple campaign was inspired by words from the movie, The Dead Poet’s Society with Robin Williams:
“We must constantly look at things in a different way. Just when you know something look at it in a different way.”
December 21st, 2012
Part 2 – Nine Trends in Sales Force Effectiveness and Learning & Development for 2013
Nine Trends in Sales Force Effectiveness and Learning & Development for 2013
(Part 2 of 2)
What are the key trends in sales force effectiveness and learning and development to watch for in 2013, and how can they impact your business? In an earlier blog post, we listed and described the first four trends:
Mobile (Smartphones and Tablets) Social Cloud/Integration Big Data and Metrics
December 19th, 2012
Nine Trends in Sales Force Effectiveness and Learning & Development for 2013
Nine Trends in Sales Force Effectiveness and Learning & Development for 2013
(Part 1 of 2)
What’s happening in the marketplace, and how can your company take advantage of it? Technology continues to evolve rapidly, and demographic shifts among your employees and clients are changing buying and selling behaviors and preferences. Many of these innovations impact the areas of sales force effectiveness and learning and development (L&D).
November 30th, 2012
Richardson Expands Sales Enablement Practice into Europe
Richardson Expands Sales Enablement Practice into Europe
Richardson has announced the appointment of Marjan Visser as Senior Consultant in the Sales Enablement Practice of its global sales training and performance improvement business.
October 31st, 2012
How to Prevent Your Front Line Sales Managers from Inadvertently Sabotaging a Sales Training Event
How to Prevent Your Front Line Sales Managers from Inadvertently Sabotaging a Sales Training Event
Sales training programs to support strategic change initiatives should be approached with the weight and attention they deserve. If this sales training is essential to getting your reps on board and in line with the new way of doing things, then do all you can to ensure its success.
The first post in this series discussed what sales managers should do before a sales training program for their sales reps takes place. If there’s one theme for the pre-training activities, that would be communication. Sales managers need to convey to their reps why the training is important and how it will impact their jobs and remind them of what needs to be done in advance of the training in order to make the most of the time spent.
October 29th, 2012
A Home Run Strategy to Help L&D Professionals Influence Sales Leaders and Create More Successful Sales Training Initiatives
In our business, we are well aware of the challenge that Learning and Development professionals face when working with sales or line-of-business leaders on growth initiatives. Sales training is often outside of the typical learning professional’s comfort zone because most have never lead sales teams or carried a bag — or haven’t done so recently. While they know that they shouldn’t be “order takers,” they end up in these situations because they don’t know to push back without ending up losing credibility or putting themselves in a political quagmire.
October 24th, 2012
What Your Frontline Sales Managers Must Do Prior to Launching a Major Sales Training or Change Initiative
Sales Training Without Sustainment Is a Wasted Investment
When sales training is treated as a one-time event, participants have been shown to lose up to 87% of skill and knowledge within four weeks. This “brain drain” needs to be dramatically reduced and significantly reversed in order for companies to optimize their investment in behavior change.
About Richardson
Richardson: Sales Training & Strategy Execution
Richardson helps leaders prepare their organization to execute sales strategies and achieve business objectives.
We have the expertise and resources to help you scale your initiative quickly and confidently across your entire sales force and supporting functions. With you, we establish sales best practices, evaluate talent, build capability and consistency through world class training, and sustain necessary change. We ensure your solution reflects your unique culture and values, which drives rapid adoption and lasting results.
Richardson’s Selling with Insights™
Richardson’s Selling with Insights™ training program teaches your sales reps advanced preparation techniques and dialogue skills to present insights, challenge the customer’s thinking, add more value, differentiate your solution, and build credibility as a trusted business partner. Click here to learn more!
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Dario F. Priolo
Chief Strategy Officer
Even a great sales strategy will fail without effective execution. It is our mission to provide you with insight and best practices for executing your sales strategy and bringing your sales vision to life. We want to help you understand what you need to know and what you need to do to be successful.
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