Case Studies

Bottom Line

Sales is never an easy job – and it can be made even more difficult by a lack of common vocabulary and standard processes within a sales team. When communicating the details of deals in the pipeline, it is important to have a shared vocabulary and understanding of where a deal sits today and of the likelihood it will close. Additionally, most top sales reps are constantly looking to improve and seek company cultures that enable that development (and ultimately, help them exceed quota!).

When accelerating growth and investment in a business, it’s one thing to have 1-2 very strong sales reps – the real challenge lies in scaling that number to 5, 10, or even 25 high performing individuals.

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Situation

Post-investment from M33, the Head of Sales was looking to rapidly scale his team. However, he wanted to first establish a common vocabulary and set of repeatable steps for the team to leverage in its sales process.

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What

A 2-day sales training bootcamp for the sales team to hone their craft – but most importantly, a game plan for ongoing coaching and training for the team in order to continuously build on practices learned during the bootcamp.

The bootcamp is book-ended by a pre-session capabilities assessment (to reveal areas of strength and blindspots to help aid coaching) and post-session skills reinforcements to ensure the new techniques learned become habit.

It is worth noting we are firm believers in ensuring follow-ups after training. We have seen many instances where a team leaves after a couple days feeling motivated and fired up to apply the new lessons learned, only to have practices atrophy and ultimately revert to their old ways months later (my golf swing is another a great example of this…).

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How

We believe it’s important to leverage top sales training firms who have worked with leading technology companies across the globe.

It is mission critical for the CEO and Head of Sales to buy-in and be involved throughout the entire training process. If they don’t take ownership, follow through on the new techniques and processes will not hold.

Consider the following mix of structured prep and follow-up:

• Pre-bootcamp – capabilities assessment to structure agenda and focus on key development areas.
• During bootcamp – mix of short/compact lessons and active role-playing to put learning into action. Role-play is key and should be a significant portion of the training process.
• Post-bootcamp – follow through with additional team training sessions and webinars to reinforce key concepts and areas of interest. Role-play needs to become a habit for high performing teams.