Training 2012 Conference & Expo speaker Carl Eidson answers the question, "What can we do to make training stick?"

I’m frequently asked this question by new contacts who are frustrated with a lack of behavior change from sales, leadership, or customer service training initiatives. I’d like to share the advice I give them, which is based on best practices from companies that get the optimal results from their learning transfer.

Three strategies to make training stick and increase performance:

1. Have managers complete the same training as their direct reports (or at least get an executive overview of the skills being taught).
2. Train managers in a specific approach to coaching that involves clarifying expectations, but at the same time listening carefully to input from their direct reports.
3. Equip managers with a coaching tool that makes it easy to plan for and deliver an effective coaching conversation where the direct report is engaged and motivated to take action.

Research by one of my colleagues indicates that when this approach is taken, learning transfer is 42% higher than when managers are not involved in supporting learning.

What actions have you taken to make training stick? What role do you see managers taking when it comes to supporting new skills learned in training? What advice do you have for making it easy to get managers involved in coaching skills learned in training?

I’d like to suggest a whole different way of looking at value. Each customer enters into a decision-making process with certain ideas about what constitutes fair value for their situation. And their ideas may not be the same as yours. When you push a premium solution and try to justify the price based on your high-end features and performance, you may be speaking with a customer who doesn’t really want or need all the bells and whistles. Fair value, for a customer, is the point at which price and performance intersect to exactly meet their requirements. Understanding what each customer specifically requires on each dimension allows you to adapt your offering to meet those specifications. For a customer, performance may refer to “speeds and feeds"—how fast do they need the equipment or software to be? Or it may be a matter of quality—do they need the highest possible level of quality? Or in their environment, can they work with slightly lower quality in a component or do without a feature? Just as consumers are often satisfied with a lesser brand for a lower cost, so you may have customers who are looking for a solution that will suffice, at the right price, and are not in the market for the top-of-the-line, more expensive solution. An adaptation for these customers may be unbundling to offer a satisfactory solution at the right price.

For either premium or commodity customers, think about offering service and options based on their whole experience with the solution—from when they first shop for the solution, to when they make the purchase, then install and use it, and finally dispose of, update, or replace it. For example, you might be able to help them with financial arrangements as they make the purchase, such as a lease agreement that is suited to their specific situation. Or you might offer to help solve problems at the stage where they are installing and using your solution. The important thing is to improve the performance side of the fair value equation without adding a lot of cost to yourself or the customer.

In this view, differentiation is based not so much on the features of your solution, but on creating an offering that is spot-on with the customer’s view of fair value—the right performance for the right price. And you can enhance the customer’s view of value by helping solve a problem or meet a need as the customer enters into the process of purchasing and using your solution.

What have you tried to differentiate? What have been the results?

What kinds of discovery questions have you asked to identify your customers’ views on what constitutes value for them? Have you been able to get good information on this?

We want to hear from you!

The core job of a sales team is new business development. Whether those activities focus on new customer acquisitions or expanding existing relationships, successful and productive salespeople spend their days looking for new ways to help their customers succeed. This notion holds true whether a customer relationship is transactional or a long-term strategic account. Your salespeople and sales managers need to focus on selling.

In too many organizations, things get murky when it comes to strategic accounts. In addition to selling, the sales team also shoulders the responsibility for day-to-day negotiations, implementation and operations meetings, and maintaining relationships between two invariably disparate cultures. Companies that sell complex products will add a “sales engineer” to the team, or add non-management responsibilities to the sales manager’s job.

In the best of situations, managing complex relationships requires internal alignment on the supplier side, from the executive and management levels through all client support teams (whether they sell, service, manufacture, bill, or fulfill). This also requires alignment, and a zippering between supplier departments (both sales and non-sales) and relevant customer functions. Additionally, when it comes to the implementation and use of supplier goods and services, it is up to the supplier to provide “change management” consulting to align the relevant internal functions on the customer side.

Heavy lifting for a sales department? You bet—it’s too heavy. The sales department needs to sell and focus its efforts on the buying team. Meanwhile, relationships need to be established at executive and functional levels between the supplier and customer. And, perhaps obviously, relationships need to be established internally on both sides to maintain focus and help the customer achieve their vision of success.

One approach is to create and maintain a business plan between the buyer and seller—one that establishes a vision and mission, measurable objectives, strategies for achieving both the objectives and vision, and defined projects (with deadlines, and staffed by teams on both sides) that serve the strategies.

This upfront work creates a target of success and defines the environment—and the alignment required on both sides—to achieve the target. It also provides a long-term operating agreement beyond the contract that helps the people involved in both organizations understand how to work with each other.

These anchor relationships provide a level of stability that cannot be matched in transactional environments. However, nothing can be quite as complex as managing strategic relationships of this nature. The upfront investment in their success must be deliberate and well thought out.

Peter Krammer is Managing Partner of ELA Consulting Group, a Wilson Learning Agent for more than 30 years. For more information, visit www.elaconsultinggroup.com.

To overcome this type of call reluctance, I’d suggest building confidence by helping salespeople learn to “speak executive.” The biggest help is to provide some language and terminology to describe what is most important to a business leader. I use the term “critical success factors” (CSFs) as a way to zero in on the handful of things that keep executives awake at night—the things that have to go right for them to reach their goals. These factors are also where our solutions can have the greatest impact on the business.

Since there are CSFs at the industry level as well as the company and departmental level, I coach my people to do some research first to find out what’s critical to the industry. You can say, “Such and such is a concern for many companies in your industry. Is it a concern for you as well?” This is a great conversation starter and shows homework has been done. The next step is to ask about goals (which any executive can easily reel off) and follow up with questions about what is critical to achieve those goals. This has a double effect. The salesperson gets great information about priorities, and the executive gets something to think about. Executives often haven’t thought about their issues in just those terms.

There’s obviously more to a successful strategy for calling across the entire enterprise—people need a whole strategic calling plan, for one thing. But a few clear tips on what to say to get an appointment and what to say when you get there goes a long way toward building the confidence to really go after opportunities that can only be found outside the “green zone” barriers.

Have you found your sales team is hesitant about calling on higher-level decision makers? What seems to get in the way? What have you found to be effective in making successful calls on executives? 

So, what are the pros and cons of the app and mobile web environments? 

Mobile Apps
Apps allow you to create a highly intuitive, graphical user interface and present content in enjoyable and informative ways. Apps also give you access to certain features that reside on the mobile device (phone, contacts, GPS, etc.) not available via the mobile web.

However, when developing an app, you will have to consider the various platforms currently on the market and create separate experiences for each platform (Apple, Android, and Blackberry). Another consideration is content development and updates. Typically, modifying content within an app requires a rebuild of the source code and changes to the user interface. And this has to be done separately for each mobile platform. In addition, apps need to be updated each time a platform provider updates the platform’s operating system.

Thus, development time and costs are major barriers to entry for many organizations. Without fully understanding how your workforce will use your app, it may be hard to justify the necessary investment.

PROS: Rich content presented in a highly intuitive user interface
CONS: Multiple platform development; high development time and costs

GOOD FOR SITUATIONS WHERE:
- Content does not change frequently
- Organizations need to support only one mobile device platform
- Rich content is a must-have

Mobile Web
The mobile web allows you to make your content available to anyone, anywhere, from any mobile device. As long as your end user has a mobile browser, he or she will be able to access your content. Since the content resides on the web, updating is easier and only has to be done once, not separately for each platform.

Nonetheless, there are certain design and development barriers involved with developing a mobile website, and your content must be formatted to fit within the limitations of the design platform. In addition, use of mobile web content requires the user to be connected to the web. This can be a problem were connectivity is limited, or in large urban areas were there is a lot of mobile web traffic.

PROS: Low cost and device agnostic; more control over content and updating capabilities
CONS: User interface and content limitations; requires reliable connectivity

GOOD FOR SITUATIONS WHERE:
- Content changes frequently
- Organizations need to support multiple mobile device platforms
- Rich content is not required
- Continuous connectivity is not an issue