The Journey from Sales Enablement to Sales Performance Consulting

Hey enablers, Mike Kunkle here. Welcome to this edition of Sales Enablement Straight Talk.

Today, I want to discuss the difference between sales enablement and sales performance consulting and provide a framework to assess where you stand. I’ll also offer my thoughts and many resources to support you on your journey toward making a larger impact with enablement through performance consulting.

Introduction

I've said recently, and believe strongly:

"If the future of Sales Enablement isn't Sales Performance Consulting, I don't think we'll have a future." ~ Mike Kunkle

As you know, my framework for enablement is The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement and includes the sales systems that support those blocks and allow for effective execution.

I won’t delve into all the details today, but here are the systems I work with most frequently:

• The Sales Hiring System
• The Sales Readiness System
• The Sales Training System (a subset of the Sales Readiness System including the 5 Stages of Sales Mastery & Behavior Change)
• The Sales Management System
• The Sales Coaching (a subset of the Sales Management System)

Basically, the building blocks (the framework) are the pieces of the puzzle. I think of them as the performance levers that you can push and pull to support and improve sales performance. The systems are how you execute to optimize and maximize the impact of these blocks, allowing you to create replicable, repeatable, scalable, and predictable results.

If you’d like to learn more:

• I've published a book on The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement .
• I offer an eBook that complements the book and guides you on developing a sales enablement plan that delivers impact and results.
• I also offer a full course, The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement Learning Experience, in partnership with Felix Krueger .

Having a strong foundation for sales enablement, preferably at the formal maturity model level, is important and sets you up to evolve toward performance consulting. Feel free to explore these resources and dive deeper into the topics as it makes sense for you.

What is Performance Consulting?

Today, I want to discuss the difference between enablement and performance consulting and how to evolve. Let’s start by defining performance consulting.

This is my definition, but I believe it’s on target:

Performance consulting is a systematic and holistic approach to improve workplace performance and achieve business goals.

• It’s grounded in analytics, diagnostics, and especially root cause analysis.
• It considers a broad array of organizational and individual factors that influence human performance, aligning with systems thinking.
• It’s all about the selection, design, and development of the most appropriate solution to solve the identified performance problem, which was pinpointed through root cause analysis.
• And then, of course, it’s about implementation using proven effective practices for the selected intervention and change practices, including communication, follow-through, measurement, analysis, evaluation, and adjustment to ensure that the targeted results are achieved.

This is the crux of performance consulting.

One of the organizations dedicated to performance consulting is the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI ).

They often refer to it as HPT or Human Performance Technology, but it is essentially the same thing as Performance Consulting. ISPI has developed a set of performance standards.

The first four standards are sometimes known as?RSVP:

• Standard 1: ? Focus on Results or Outcomes (Results)
• Standard 2:? Take a Systemic View (Systems)
• Standard 3:? Add Value (Value)
• Standard 4:? Work in Partnership with Clients & Stakeholders (Partnership)

Competent practitioners follow a systematic process:

• Standard 5:? Determine Need or Opportunity
• Standard 6:? Determine Cause
• Standard 7:? Design Solutions including Implementation and Evaluation
• Standard 8:? Ensure Solutions’ Conformity and Feasibility
• Standard 9:? Implement Solutions
• Standard 10: Evaluate Results and Impact

The first four standards are referred to as RSVP or results, systems, value, and partnership. These are foundations to doing performance work. Competent practitioners follow a systematic process, which includes standards 5 through 10.

If you’d like to explore the performance standards from ISPI, the links above will take you to each of the standards, or the one on the bottom will take you to an overview. You can also visit ISPI’s website at ispi.org .

ISPI’s is not the only model out there. For example, ATD offers their Human Performance Improvement model (and a certificate) as well.

Common Elements aka "Big Moving Parts"

For all of the models, the "big moving parts" tend to be:

• Identifying a problem worth solving
• Conducting diagnostics and gap analysis, especially root cause analysis
• Problem-solving and solution design to address the gap
• Solution development based on the design requirements.
• Effective implementation with change management, followed by a measure, evaluate, and adjust loop until the desired results are achieved.

Feel free to explore both models and others that you may come across. I’ll provide links to recommended reading in the Resources section.

Sales Enablement vs. Sales Performance Consulting

Now, with this foundation laid, I’d like to discuss some of the differences between sales enablement and sales performance consulting. I’ll do it with this framework. Looking down the left, you see focus, outputs, measures, assessments, accountability, and the executive view of each of these functions and activities.

• Focus: Sales enablement is often about leading initiatives and projects. The performance consulting difference is ensuring that those initiatives and projects address performance issues.
• Outputs: Sales enablement typically involves activities producing messaging, training, and tools for the sales force. Sales performance consulting focuses more on the results those activities should deliver or the improved performance.
• Measures: Sales enablement often measures the progress of initiatives, projects, and activities. Performance consulting is more focused on measuring performance change and ROI.
• Assessments: Enablement is often assessed on how much of their work the sales force uses. In other words, are they using the outputs from the initiatives and projects? Sales performance consulting is assessed more on how much the sales force improves.
• Accountability: Enablement is often held accountable for delivering things to the sales force. Performance consulting holds itself accountable for delivering better sales productivity and making an impact with enablement.
• Executive View: Lastly, and critically important, is how the executive team views the function and activities. Enablement is often viewed as a cost center and, in times of difficulty, is one of the departments or functions that are cut. This happened recently in the SaaS software industry where many enablers were downsized rather than being retained to help the business through a difficult time. That’s because the executives did not view enablement as an investment that would yield dividends and help the company through the challenges.

Where Are You Today?

When assessing these factors, it’s common to think it’s an either-or proposition: you are either on one side of the chart or the other, or somewhere on a sliding scale between the two. This is not entirely true for all but one of these factors. It’s not an either-or proposition.

Here’s how I think of it: I think that each of these things is its own sliding scale. With Focus, for example, you must be able to effectively lead initiatives and projects because that’s how things get done. But you also must ensure that those initiatives and projects address performance issues.

As you look down this chart, the same principle applies to Outputs, Measures, Assessments, and Accountability.

The one of these that is not both, but is in fact either-or, is how the executive team views your function and work. They will either see you as a cost center or an investment. It’s in your best interest to ensure that the sales performance consulting factors on this chart lead them to see you as an investment.

For the above chart, consider assessing two points along the sliding scale:

1. Where are you today?
2. Where should you be, given what you need to accomplish?

This will help you determine what you should focus on next.

How to Get Started

Despite my plea to evolve toward performance consulting and the critical importance to our long-term future, I do recognize that it's a journey. The old saying, "Crawl, walk, run," applies here.

In terms of your enablement practice, strive to reach the formal maturity model level where enablement is systematic and impactful first.

For me, that means getting the building blocks and systems in place, with all the cylinders firing, even if not perfectly. Then, you can focus on continuous improvement, diagnostics, and The Big Moving Parts from above, as you evolve from Sales Enablement to Sales Performance Consulting. Just as in instructional design, think: "Chunk, sequence, layer."

I won't suggest that a full-scale rip-out and reconstruction is never appropriate, but in most cases, an evolution will be more successful than a revolution.

While you are doing that, start a concurrent learning journey about performance consulting and related performance improvement disciplines. There is an entire world of business performance improvement outside of sales enablement. I find it amusing sometimes how often we think we're doing groundbreaking work when we're just reinventing a wheel that has been in use for years in other circles.

As writer and philosopher George Santayana wrote,

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

To stop reinventing the wheel, study these others disciplines and approaches and incorporate what you learn appropriately.

• Performance Consulting/Human Performance Technology
• Total Quality Management (TQM)
• Business Process Management
• Financial & Business Acumen
• Organization Development (OD)
• Organization Behavior (OB)
• Systems Thinking
• Lean and Six Sigma
• Agile Methodology
• Change Management

In addition, in our field, it also makes sense to understand at least the foundations of:

• Marketing (at least Product Marketing, Content Marketing, and Demand Generation)
• Sales or Revenue Operations (a good chunk is included openly in the Building Blocks framework, but some is somewhat hidden inside the elements in the Sales Management System)
• Customer Success Management.

Is It Worth All the Effort?

This is a question that I often get asked: “Is this worth all the effort?” In my experience, it absolutely is. Here are some sample results of this work: not just by achieving the formal maturity model of sales enablement with the building blocks and systems, but by layering a performance consulting approach and getting into a continuous improvement loop to maximize the potential of the sales force. In doing this, you absolutely can deliver a significant business impact.

In the Resources section, I'm providing a variety of content and materials to explore on performance consulting. There is plenty that you can dig into, to become a sales change expert and further hone your performance consulting capabilities.

Lastly, here are just three of the tools that I often use when troubleshooting issues and considering solutions. Presenting them this way is a gross oversimplification and a bit risky, so I share them with the intent of communicating that there are many great tools out there, in the world of performance consulting/performance improvement. You just have to invest the time to learn, and you will come across these and many others.

• A Solution Selector that I’ve adapted from the work of Ferdinand Fournies , with his permission prior to his passing, which I’ve incorporated into my course on Sales Coaching Excellence.
• Gilbert’s Behavior Engineering Model , often referred to as his Six Box Model. The link here is to a model that Roger Chevalier adapted.
• Bob Mager and Peter Pipe’s Performance Analysis Flowchart from their book on Analyzing Performance Problems, which is now available through the Mager Consortium .

I hope you find these tool and all of the resources below to be helpful.

Closing Thoughts

As I said in the beginning, if the future of Sales Enablement isn't Sales Performance Consulting, I don't think we'll have a future.

The rash of downsizings we've experienced (and the lack of faith behind them) along with the current challenging job market for enablers, is just the beginning. This has prompted a move toward "revenue enablement" (enablement across the buyer- and customer-facing GTM functions). While that is a smart extension, I don't believe going wider is the only answer. The answer is becoming more effective at creating solutions and systems that improve organizational performance.

The #ProveIt mantra of the upcoming Revenue Enablement Society conference and my main stage presentation on "Driving Outcomes with Enablement" at the Association for Talent Development (ATD) 's ATD SELL conference this year, are evidence that we're beginning to recognize this.

The Building Blocks already includes much (but admittedly not all) of what's needed in that regard. (See this post on Rethinking Enablement for the Future: Commercial Effectiveness Integration for more on that topic.) But in either case, regardless of the full breadth of the function, the ability to act as an internal performance consultant and lead change initiatives that will improve sales results, is a must.

This takes a village, and doesn't just sit on the shoulders of enablement, which usually has influence without authority. But someone needs to lead the charge, to ensure best practices, and to consult with integrity and effectiveness. In my mind - that's us. I know it's possible.

Need Help?

If you need guidance, either one-time or ongoing, or want to discuss how to implement the Building Blocks and Systems or evolve to Performance Consulting - you know where I sit.

RESOURCES

Online

• Article: Harless Front-End Analysis Model
• Article: The ATD Human Performance Improvement Model
• Article: The ISPI HPT Model
• Video: Why Study Human Performance Technology?
• Videos: The Performance Thinking Network

Books

• Performance Consulting: A Strategic Process to Improve, Measure, and Sustain Organizational Results
• Serious Performance Consulting
• Performance Consulting: Applying Performance Improvement in Human Resource Development
• The Performance Consultant's Fieldbook: Tools and Techniques for Improving Organizations and People
• Handbook of Human Performance Technology, 3rd Edition
• Exemplary Performance: Driving Business Results by Benchmarking Your Star Performers
• Performance Basics
• Training Ain’t Performance
• Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance
• Human Performance Improvement: Building Practitioner Performance

Other Performance Approaches

• More on Performance Consulting
• More on Human Performance Technology
• Total Quality Management (TQM)
• Business Process Management
• Financial & Business Acumen
• Organization Development
• Organization Behavior
• Systems Thinking
• Lean and Six Sigma
• Agile Methodology
• Change Management

Well, that's it for this week, Enablers! Did you learn something new reading this newsletter? If you did, or if it just made you think (and maybe chuckle from time to time - bonus points if you snorted), share it with your favorite enablement colleague, subscribe right here on LinkedIn, and check out The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement Learning Experience . For other courses and content from Mike, see: https://linktr.ee/mikekunkle

Until next time, stay the course, Enablers, and #MakeAnImpact With #Enablement!