Using Sales Competency Frameworks in Training

Gartner research finds that B2B sales reps forget 70% of the information they learn within a week of training, and 87% will forget it within a month.

That is simply astounding!

All that effort to find the right provider…

All the investment…

All the time taking your sales reps away from the day job…

All that expectation…

…and you pour 70% of it down the drain in the first week.

It certainly makes us want to cry.

But, as sales is all about resilience, let’s dust ourselves off, pull ourselves together, and take a look at what we can do to make it a happy ending.

Like every good fairy tale, it has a beginning middle, and end. The hero of our story is going to be the good old sales competency framework. The one you’ve likely got filed away somewhere that’s a little unloved. Well, we’re going to give it a once over and make it the star of this show!

The Beginning: Leveraging the Sales Competency Framework

At the beginning of any big journey or task, we need a map. A map that allows us to understand where we are today and where we want to be at the end of our journey.

In the context of sales training, a sales competency framework or map is exactly that…

It enables us to define what good looks like. What skills and behaviors do we want all our reps to have to be the very best at what they do?

But a map is useless unless we know our starting point. So we need to understand where every single rep is against that competency blueprint. We need to have visibility of the gaps.

At this point, we’ve not even started to look for training. We’re just getting our lay of the land…

Once you’ve understood the gaps, you’ve got a wealth of information to enable you to plan your journey. You’ve got a starting point and some navigation pointers.

The Middle: Empowering with the Sales Competency Framework

The one-size-fits-all all, sheep-dip approach to sales training is no longer fit for purpose. Unless you are doing a wholesale transformation where everyone is learning something new, it just doesn’t drive the same value for everyone and therefore diminishes the overall value through lack of buy-in.

Take Annie… she’s an experienced Account Executive. She absolutely rocks during the negotiation stage of any deal. So why on earth are we sending her on a negotiation training course? No value, no buy-in, and ultimately zero pay-off for either Annie or your business. Instead, Annie is lacking in prospecting skills. Upping her game in this area will pay dividends. It engages her as she knows it's a gap and above all, will drive additional success and revenue to the bottom line.

So, the first part of the middle of our journey is to align your sales training to the gaps you found across your sales competency framework.

If you can, only enroll people in courses or training that will have a material impact on their skills and behaviors and ultimately their performance. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

When you are clear with the sales reps and importantly the sales managers WHY they are attending the training and the impact it will have, you’ll get that all-important buy-in and avoid the ‘tick box exercise’ trap.

Take this one step further and align your sales competencies to the results or leading indicators you plan to impact.

For example, if Annie gets better at prospecting, her lead-to-meeting ratio will increase giving her more opportunities to go after and use her already killer negotiation skills.

When you put training into the context and language of the people you are serving, it raises the ‘buy-in’ bar even higher.

The End: Reinforcement through the Sales Competency Framework

The reason most people forget 70% of what they’ve learned within that first week is that they rush back to the day job with zero follow-up or reinforcement. The sales rep’s life is a busy one.

So have a universal plan for the Tuesday after every training event (Monday is a little keen and we all have catching up to do!).

As you may have guessed, the protagonist in our story is pivotal once again. Having a sales competency framework and building the coaching and embedding plan around that ensures everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. Consistency is key here.

Think of this:

• You started your journey understanding every rep’s gaps (using your sales competency framework)
• You delivered training directed at each rep's gaps (using your sales competency framework)
• You can now align the follow-up activities and coaching to those focus areas (using your sales competency framework)

Double down on the coaching and follow-up objectives attendee sales reps have against their competency gaps. Have them role-play, complete challenges, and set clear milestones.

Finally, review and measure the overall outcomes 1 - 3 months after your training program delivers 9 and consistently thereafter:

• Where do your reps stand on the competency framework now?
• What overall leading measures have you impacted as a result?

Keep doing this - it’s a cycle, not a linear process.

Every good book needs a PR agent so be sure to publicise the success stories. We’re all in sales, right?

So when Annie achieves a 30% uplift in lead-to-meeting conversions within 90 days of her prospecting, shout it from the hilltops, and use it to sell the value message to others!

Now Annie, her manager, the business, the bottom line, and our Sales Competency Framework Super Hero can all live happily ever after…