An Innovative, Powerful Approach To Sales Training

Start With Modeling Training To Specific Competencies

Job Competency --> Performance --> Business Results

What is Competency Modeling?

It's identifying specific competencies that a rep needs to have in order to achieve a company's business objectives and contouring training to those competencies.

Sounds reasonable, what's the big deal?

First, many training classes start the process or class without defining the competencies they're trying to achieve.  The training process works best when every part of training is tied to a specific competency. Therefore if the material or process is not tied to a particular competency, take it out.

Secondly, selling is different than other job functions: knowledge and understanding are not enough, you have to be able to sell it and that is a function of having a best-in-class sales dialogue with your prospective clients.  Classroom training is fine for 'knowledge & understanding' - you present your material and evaluate their knowledge with a test.  The problem is that selling is won and lost based on the dialogue a sales rep has with their customer and that means they need to DEMONSTRATE their ability to SELL IT before they leave the training session.  Otherwise, you are depending on the rep to come up with their own approach and language and the competencies associated with 'selling it' are not achieved until, through trial and error, they get it.  Think about what your top reps say vs. newer reps It's more concise and compelling isn't it? Why? I'm not recommending a 'canned' approach, I'm simply suggesting we help them with compelling dialogue and approach to help them ramp up quickly.  Their early success is critical to immediate results and long-term performance and they will not achieve that without demonstrating dialogue competency before they leave the training.

Imagine you have a sales organization that:

• Every rep has been trained, evaluated, and passed both 'knowledge' and 'demonstrated skills' as defined by your custom well-defined competencies you require in order to achieve your business objectives.
• There is a competency program beginning with New Hires all the way to senior reps that provide additional learning and growth throughout their career.
• You have a culture and pull-through strategy that motivates reps to reach the highest standards of competency and performance - sort of a MBA of sales.
• Management knows where every rep stands in their development and the Region Manager has a plan to get them to the next level of competency.
• You're leveraging internet e-Learning programs that deliver knowledge & understanding yet keep reps in the field and learning on their own time. Video or local group meetings can be used for demonstrated skills to minimize the time reps are out of their territory.
• There is clear differentiation between competencies of the sales dialogue (1 sales meeting) and the entire sales process (multiple meetings) and how to optimize each to achieve highest-ever efficiency and productivity. They're two different things!

That's what a Competency Model does.

How do we get started?

First, work with Marketing and Sales to define the knowledge and selling skills required to achieve business objectives.  Distinguish between technical, clinical, operational, and business value - depending on the requirements of successful selling in your industry.  If your product or solution is a physician preference item, that's one thing; if evaluation committees or administrative personnel are part of your sales process then operational, economic, and business value are important elements of your competency modeling for both sales dialogue and sales process.

Distinguish between 'A-level' and 'B-level' competency requirements.  For example, you might consider Phase I competency as having an 'A-level' product knowledge and 'B-level' demonstrated selling skills.  But in Phase II, you might have an 'A-level' requirement for both knowledge and demonstrated selling skills. Then contour your evaluation criteria so it isolates and evaluates each specific knowledge and skill component as objectively as possible. Then keep evaluation standards at 95% so you know that those who pass know all but only 5%. Otherwise, if you set the passing grade at, say 80%, everyone's 20% will contain different things and you won't know where they need help.

To expedite the process, get Phase I started as you work towards Phase II, III, and IV.  It's important to get the program started rather than getting bogged down in downstream phases.

Secondly, consider breaking your sales dialogue (client meeting) into:

• Introduction - objective of the meeting and introduce questions
• Questions - chronology, approach, and content are important. To achieve THE BEST most comfortable dialogue possible, you must prepare to ask the right questions first. In your first meeting you might ask them what their role and responsibilities are before asking them what products/solutions they use. While the content of the question is important, so too is the approach and language you use when asking it. You cannot, for example, ask the client if patient care is important because that's insulting: of course it's important you knucklehead! You have to soften the question with a better, more contoured approach. Another important aspect is to ask questions that, when the client responds with 'yes' they have agreed to a need that you can uniquely resolve. Look at your product/solution's value proposition and write down questions that isolate those needs you can solve. When your questions have been asked, summarize and prioritize what appear to be their most important needs and gain their agreement.
• Mini-Presentations - are specific presentations designed to address ONE agreed-upon need. Since we know from our questions and have obtained agreement to those needs, we can now present our solutions that can help. That way, we're not presenting everything and guessing as to which features/benefits are important to them. There are three elements: Introduction, Mini-Presentation, seek Feedback. In this way, you will know how they feel about each mini-presentation (3 - 5 maximum) so when you choose to close its a natural part of the discussion because their feedback will tell you if they're convinced or not!
• Closing - Before you close, summarize the call to this point. Start with their highest priority and summarize what you heard. For example: "John, the first thing we talked about was ... and you seemed to like the way our product ... which would allow you to better ... and the result of that would enable you to ... did I capture that right? The second thing we talked about was ... what you liked about our solution was ... am I saying that right (feedback)?" Once you have highlighted what they liked most about our solution, you can be more directive in your close because you/they know they like it. The more excited they are, the more they will do in order to gain access to your solution! That's why concise and compelling dialogue is so important! The better we execute a compelling and comfortable dialogue, the more excited and comfortable the client will be in closing expeditiously!

The nuances associated with the remaining elements of your Competency Model are - must be - specific to your company and industry. One thing reps hate is training that is not specific to what they face every day. Customizing your training so it has the most impact will keep your team engaged and anxious for more!

Hopefully this gets you started on your own company's Competency Model. Let me know if I can help!

All the best,

Dan