Training Industry Magazine - Fall 2022 - 50

changed. According to McKinsey,
between 70-80% of buyers prefer
remote engagement over in-person
engagement.
The
pandemic
a
balance
has
taught us that we can and should
bolster our ability to interface
digitally with customers. There
is
to
strike. Complex
conversations and decision-making
often need in-person interface; your
skill development programs should
help sellers to determine the best
sales conversation method and the
content of those conversations.
Each of the above trends indicates a
skill you can assess for within your sales
teams. When you have the skill data,
you can more easily identify the training
approaches to best address skill gaps.
2. Uncover Relevant
Skill Competency Data
with Sales-specific
Assessments
There's a significant gap in most
Smart sales growth
is the engine of your
organization's success.
organizations between the current
state of sales performance and the
desired state of sales performance.
How can training leaders partner with
sales leaders to ensure the right sales
professionals are in the right roles, with
the right skills?
There's a multifaceted answer to that
question. From a strategic standpoint,
taking a center of excellence approach is
one to consider. This approach includes
building excellence in the pillars of
people, structure and clients.
* Leaders are focused on a balance
of revenue sources and significant
pipeline improvements. Gartner's " The
Chief Sales Officer " has uncovered
that chief sales officers are expecting
approximately 70% of revenues to
come from existing client growth and
approximately 30% to come from new
client acquisition. Those leaders are
also highly focused on improving the
quality of their sales pipelines. This
indicates that sales training programs
need to address both the skills of
client expansion and prospecting for
new client acquisition.
* Enter
elevated
sales
conversations.
According to Forrester, decisionmakers
are more likely to buy from sales
professionals who educate them with
new insights and perspectives. Sales
training programs that follow a pain/
feature/benefit/solution approach are
| 50
Within the people pillar, leveraging a
sales-specific assessment is the path to
mining the right data on the modern sales
competencies your teams need. In many
instances, sales leaders overestimate
their teams' skills, sales professionals
* People: The people pillar includes talent
strategy, such as hiring, onboarding,
assessment, skill development and
leadership development.
* Structure: The structure pillar includes
your sales processes, organizational
design, role alignment, compensation
models and other sales tools
necessary to succeed.
* Client: The client pillar includes your
approach to new business, client
expansion, account management and
business partner development.
outdated because they often neglect
the need for thought-provoking insights.
Customers expect their valuable
time (and the valuable time of your
sales teams) to focus on new insights,
perspectives and education that they
can't obtain elsewhere.
are mismatched to their roles and aren't
maximizing their potential or there are
insufficient structures to support the
sales team. For example, if you require
a sales professional to sell into a brandnew
market or territory, that's considered
to be a hunting role with high levels of
difficulty. If you have a professional in
that role who is better suited for existing
client expansion, that mismatch will cause
challenges in achieving sales results.
Given the trends shared earlier and the
current sales environment, gather data
in the following competencies:
* Opportunity creation through hunting
and prospecting skills.
* Qualification of opportunities to
ensure a quality pipeline with velocity
through the process.
* Access to executive decision-makers
and stakeholders.
* Consultative sales conversations
held digitally and in-person, which
continually add value to a client's or
prospect's business.
* Ability to sell on value rather than price.
* Digital competencies, including video
proficiency.
* Use of process in their sales approach.
You can and should measure mindset,
sales competencies and the structures
of your sales organization. You can
also measure how well the sales team
is suited to both the type of sales
role and sales role difficulty. These
measurements can guide sales training
strategy, skill focus and application with
customer opportunities.
3. Align With and
Recommend Substantive
Sales Metrics
There are varying degrees of maturity
when it comes to the sales metrics
tracked within organizations. Training
leaders can improve their " peer status "
with sales leaders by requesting to
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/these-eight-charts-show-how-covid-19-has-changed-b2b-sales-forever https://salesenablement.pro/expertise/forrester-the-future-of-sales-enablement-is-the-c-suite-soiree-san-francisco/
Training Industry Magazine - Fall 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - Fall 2022
