The Messaging Feed

It’s amazing what you can achieve when you’ve got a high performer showing you exactly what to do.  Check out this 30-second clip that shows the impact of coaching and modeling — at the moment it’s needed.

Salespeople are no exception.   In a recent survey, Corporate Visions found that 87% of salespeople want more field-level, just-in-time coaching from their managers, especially in differentiating their solution from the competition.[1]

The best learning takes place outside the classroom

While investing in a good training program help reps meet and exceed quota, even the best training fades over time.  In fact, 87% of what’s learned in sales training classrooms is forgotten in just four weeks.[2] So, just-in-time coaching and reinforcement is critical to maximize the often substantial investments companies make in training their sales forces.

As evidence, two recent studies from Pfizer and American Express confirm that managerial involvement, post-training, has a positive effect on learning, retention and impact.  Participants who achieved significantly better results after training were four times (4X) more likely to have had a conversation with their managers about how to apply their newly acquired skills once they got back in the field. [3]

Unfortunately, we hear that front-line managers are increasingly overwhelmed with other expectations.  On top of quota pressures, they are tasked with translating company-wide initiatives to field-level tactics, HR management obligations, and maximizing pipeline health.

This leaves them with precious little time to provide specific coaching, reinforcement and examples of how to create and deliver your best message to your prospects and customers.

Here are four examples of best practices we’ve seen to help in this area:

1. One hour a week – That’s all.  Set aside one hour, early on Monday morning to get your teams on a conference call.  Each week, have one of the sales people in your territory walk the team through a recent or upcoming presentation they are going to make.  Use a web presentation tool to share the content.  This gives the manager an opportunity to coach, as well as peers to provide input. Together, you can learn each week how to sharpen your customer messages for greater impact.
2. Best practice examples – With FLIP™ video technology, the advent of YouTube™, along with simple on-demand, multi-media presentation tools such as Brainshark (www.brainshark.com) there’s no excuse for not capturing some of the best messaging practices and examples and sharing them throughout the company.  You don’t need fancy, expensive videos or flash demos to get this great coaching content online.
3. Tribal knowledge sharing – Web 2.0 is a fancy term for social networking, which is a fancy term for what used to be a “copy all” and “reply all” email request in the field.  Problem is that many of these one-off archeological digs for stuff that works in the field were rarely captured and managed as company assets.  So, a lot of these became redundant requests.  You need to look at technologies such as Savo (www.savogroup.com) and StreetSmarts (www.streetsmarts.com) that are harnessing the collective would-be, one-off genius of the organization and making it easily available to everyone who needs it.
4. Field message coaching – How important is it that you get your biggest presentations, pitches and proposals right?  Some companies are designating regional field marketing, sales or training resources to come alongside field sales managers and serve as the designated expert on making sure your customer messaging is working in the field, inside the deals, where it counts.  It’s a big commitment, but companies are justifying it by tracking the improvements in deal sizes and close rates on the opportunities these experts work on versus the ones they don’t and seeing trackable improvements.

Here’s some just-in-time coaching help for Power Messaging alumni:

Corporate Visions recently launched Power Connection, a just-in-time coaching and messaging reinforcement tool designed exclusively to help you master Power Messaging as part of your sales craft.  It’s a combination of modular, multi-media refreshers (5-15 minutes) on each of the key Power Messaging techniques, a set of additional practice examples and helpful hints, along with access to a Corporate Visions messaging expert, when you need it.
Check it out now:
http://www.brainshark.com/cvi/PC4PM4Alumni?tx=Feed

[2] American Society for Training and Development

[3] American Society for Training and Development