Optimizing Sales Performance Gains Through Balanced Competency Building
Gunter Wessels, PhD, MBA
Founder & CEO, LiquidSmarts | Healthcare sales coaching, consulting, and training | Helping 50k+ leaders shape their distinctive edge in healthcare sales
Optimizing sales performance requires a delicate balance. Leaders must fill competency gaps through coaching and rigorous and relevant training, but what is coached and trained is equally important. Decades of experience have taught us that the most reliable mechanism to amplify strengths is using performance enhancement frameworks that build competencies.
This case study illustrates LiquidSMARTS’ integrated sales training methodology through multiple lenses, showcasing how the curriculum strikes an optimized balance between deficit repair and the magnification of participants’ existing talents. Outcomes spotlight personalized certification pathways, allowing professionals from all backgrounds to experience rapid, enduring, and transformational career growth.
Diagnosing Sales Competency Gaps
LiquidSMARTS maintains an industry-leading Sales Competency Framework leveraging algorithms to benchmark proficiency expectations across eight vital dimensions, including:
Our development frameworks integrate psychometric analysis alongside skills diagnostics, collectively revealing competency gaps against research—validated proficiency benchmarks for diverse sales specialties.
Personalized Learning Pathways
LiquidSMARTS optimizes sales performance by filling competency gaps through training and enhancing strengths through personalized learning pathways. We use a Sales Competency Framework to identify gaps and create personalized learning pathways. Participants undergo multi-modal competency building across three dimensions: intensive training programs, reinforcement mechanisms, and sustained engagement. DealSMARTS is a prime example of our balanced approach, which focuses on five core skill spheres. One success story involves Mariana, who used her DealSMARTS competencies to turn around toxic accounts by focusing on gaining access to more decision-makers with better questions.
Competency Building for Enduring Advancement
With personalized pathways, participants undergo comprehensive competency-building across three interconnected dimensions:
Collectively, these dimensions install competencies through multi-modal interventions—documents, video, audio, virtual classrooms, and workshops—built on the latest applied research. Sustained engagement protocols embed and reinforce proficiency and create enduring differentiators even as markets evolve at an accelerated speed.
DealSMARTS: Reframing Sales Strategy and Client Perceptions
The DealSMARTS sales training program represents a prime example of LiquidSMARTS’s balanced competency-building architecture. The flexible course focuses first on elevating participant capabilities across five core skill spheres:
For professionals with existing strengths in solution design or business case modeling, DealSMARTS provides amplification modules like advanced simulations for skills verification and access to the latest research in those domains—sustaining differentiation.
However, participants struggling with strategic thinking, planning, and positioning undergo targeted competency expansion first via immersive course modules focused on precisely bridging those skill gaps. Intensive role plays, case studies, and repeatable frameworks are vital competencies for enduring mastery and leadership impact.
DealSMARTS in Action: Turning Around Toxic Accounts
Mariana, a device rep, was part of a discussion that became hostile. Instead of adding to the tension, she used her DealSMARTS skills to bring clarity. She guarded her credibility, engaged, and asked questions about the pain point. She identified that unplanned costs and overruns resulted from poor planning, lack of advisors, and insufficient visibility across interdependent sites.
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Mariana then came up with a collaborative approach to centralize visibility with supply utilization. By positioning already available reports, she and the client became strategic partners and shared accountability for project outcomes. This made the exchanges between the client and Mariana more productive, moving from hostile to visionary. As a result of Mariana’s collaborative approach, there were significant improvements in previously difficult accounts. This included breakthrough volume and expansion commitments from these accounts.
Executive Access and Presence Masterclass: Capturing Leadership Mindshare
The Executive Access and Presence Masterclass is an incredible opportunity to improve your executive sales skills and enhance your leadership influence. As LiquidSMARTS’s flagship offering, it has a proven track record of success. This is a logical skill advancement chance to take your career to the next level.
The program begins with a rigorous gap analysis that assesses participants’ abilities against validated success factors, such as vision resonance, political navigation dexterity, trait agreeableness, EQ, and decision acceleration capability.
Once the diagnosis is complete, personalized learning pathways are created to address the specific areas of deficit hindering leadership influence. For example, participants who struggle with politically mapping complex organizations will receive targeted coaching until they demonstrate competency at acceptable thresholds.
After addressing the gaps, participants move on to amplification modules that accelerate their differentiation. These modules aim to enhance the participants’ capabilities and help them stand out from the competition. For instance, executives looking to distinguish their strategic vision-framing capabilities undergo simulations designed to anchor resonant messaging and capture leadership mindshare during DealSMARTS.
The program’s design provides an optimal framework for enduring C-suite success by first addressing the gaps that impact leadership sales and then amplifying the participants’ differentiated capabilities in executive engagement. The seamless flow of this program ensures that participants get the most out of it and emerge as successful leaders in their respective fields.
Competency Sustainability Through Collaborative Partnerships
Beyond initial certifications, LiquidSMARTS deploys continuity and support mechanisms amplifying newly developed competencies into true leadership differentiators, including:
Through this multi-dimensional sustainability approach, LiquidSMARTS embeds proficiency gained during competency-building phases into career accelerants, producing enduring competitive advantage.
Mentors provide application guidance, unlocking success in ever-evolving complex situations. Simulations replicate deal variability, accelerating response calibration. Continuous learning fuels the enduring relevance of strategic response capabilities. Sustained engagement protocols lock in C-suite access as durable executive influencers.
In addition to our existing mentorship program, we have onboarded retired executives as mentors. Their wealth of knowledge and experience will be invaluable to our clients seeking guidance in navigating complex business situations. Furthermore, we are committed to working with our clients to solicit more specialized skills to meet their needs. Through this collaborative effort, we are confident that our clients will have the necessary tools and expertise to achieve their goals.
Optimized and Enduring Competency Development
LiquidSMARTS’ integrated competency expansion architecture spotlights the optimal blend between gap repair and performance enhancement for enduring career trajectory impact.
Sales professionals first undergo rigorous diagnostics, precisely revealing deficit areas hindering advancement into leadership positioning and strategic solution mapping influence. Research-validated competency frameworks anchor remedial interventions to approved skill standards, measured through assessments spotlighting factual sustainability of gains.
Once gaps are addressed, amplification modules customize advancement aligned to participant strengths—whether executive presence, multi-dimensional negotiation dexterity, or resonant solution value framing capabilities. Continuous learning sustains differentiation, while collaborative partnerships convert new competencies into recognized career accelerants at peer and leadership tiers.
Ultimately, by striking a delicate balance between filling sales competency gaps and targeted performance enhancement, LiquidSMARTS propels participants to experience rapid, enduring, and transformational career optimization, cementing leadership influence and strategic impact. The elegance lies in the blend—expanding deficits to acceptable thresholds and then custom amplifying talent into competitive differentiators. This precise calibration produces optimized advancement with enduring relevance.