The Four Pillars of Sales Readiness - Amazon S3...Sales readiness –a core component of sales enablement –involves all strategic activities designed to prepare sellers with the

The Four Pillars of Sales Readiness

Jim Ninivaggi

Chief Readiness Officer, Brainshark

Getting Reps Ready

“Do you want to becomfortable

or do you want to be ready?

They’re not necessarily the same.”

Dave Alred, Performance Coach

Today’s Agenda

• From Sales Training to Sales Readiness

• Four Pillars of Sales Readiness

• Best Practices Across the Pillars

From Sales Training to Sales Readiness

At This Very Minute…

Can You Answer This Simple Question…

Are Our Reps Ready?

How Do You Know????

Are Our Reps Ready ?

Step #1 – Over-hire new reps by 20%

“Because we’ve given up on having a higher success rate.”

Step #2 – Over-quota by 20% to hit company targets

“Because we know 40% of reps will fail to hit their number.”.”

Most companies don’t know if a rep is (or isn’t) ready until AFTER they’ve already failed

So what do you do?

Step #3 – Cross fingers and hope for the best

It’s been like this forever…

.”

What is Sales Readiness?

Sales readiness – a core component of sales enablement – involves all strategic activities designed to prepare sellers with the knowledge and skills to make the most of every buyer interaction, whether it’s via email, phone, video conference, or face-to-face.

Sales Readiness: A Component of Sales Enablement

Sales Readiness

• Recruiting• Hiring• Onboarding• Transformation• Continuous Learning• Role Development

Sales Asset Management

• Create• Store/Manage• Deliver to Reps• Share with Buyers• Measure Impact

Sales Comm. Aggregation

• Emails to Field• Sales Broadcasts• Newsletters• Sales Portals• Social• Sales meetings

Four Readiness Pillars

Foundational Continuous Transformational Reactive

The Four Sales Readiness Pillars

Accelerate time to full productivity and improve

retention across every role in the field.

Ensure every member of the field is always ready to maximize every buyer

interaction.

“Re-Board” the entire field while minimizing impact on productivity

and revenue.

Get your entire field message ready in days

or hours.

“We need our sellers to get ramped up and productive faster.”

“This new product is a game changer. How do we get our

reps ready to sell it?”

“This isn’t working – we need our reps to start selling to the C-suite.”

“Two of our competitors just merged. What’s our

message to buyers?”

Foundational Continuous Transformational Reactive

Sales Managers: The Foundation of the Four Sales Readiness Pillars

“We need our sellers to get ramped up and productive faster.”

“This new product is a game changer. How do we get our

reps ready to sell it?”

“This isn’t working – we need our reps to start selling to the C-suite.”

“Two of our competitors just merged. What’s our

message to buyers?”

Sales Management Readiness

Best Practices

Foundational Continuous Transformational Reactive

Sales Managers: The Foundation of the Four Sales Readiness Pillars

“We need our sellers to get ramped up and productive faster.”

“This new product is a game changer. How do we get our

reps ready tosell it?”

“This isn’t working – we need our reps to start selling to the C-suite.”

“Two of our competitors just merged. What’s our

message to buyers?”

Sales Management Readiness

Death by PowerPoint

Hire “experience”

$

Foundational: Onboarding Methods That Don’t Work

Rolodex Check the Boxes

On the job training

Practice on Buyers

• Map time to first critical activities with your sales leadership

• Run 4-6 weeks sprints to get reps ready for next activity

• Build out the assessments and certifications (synchronous and asynchronous)

• Use the onsite “boot-camp” for practice and simulation

• Onboarding programs for all roles

Foundational: Agile Onboarding

Foundational Continuous Transformational Reactive

Sales Managers: The Foundation of the Four Sales Readiness Pillars

“We need our sellers to get ramped up and productive faster.”

“This new product is a game changer. How do we get our

reps ready to sell it?”

“This isn’t working – we need our reps to start selling to the C-suite.”

“Two of our competitors just merged. What’s our

message to buyers?”

Sales Management Readiness

Continuous Readiness: Top Reps Demand It

of high performers indicated a lack of ongoing learning as a key driver in leaving

a company.

39%

Base• Micro-learning• Quick knowledge checks• Peer learning

Assess• Video-based role-play• Machine Analysis• Virtual coaching

Ready• Live simulation• In-field assessment• Coaching guided by technology

Perpetual Readiness

BASE

BASE > ASSESS > READY > REPEAT

Perpetual Readiness

Foundational Continuous Transformational Reactive

Sales Managers: The Foundation of the Four Sales Readiness Pillars

“We need our sellers to get ramped up and productive faster.”

“This new product is a game changer. How do we get our

reps ready to sell it?”

“This isn’t working – we need our reps to start selling to the C-suite.”

“Two of our competitors just merged. What’s our

message to buyers?”

Sales Management Readiness

Transformational: Mind Shift A Different Conversation

• Examples:- Merger/Acquisition

- New markets

- New buyers

- New sales approach

• Trickle-down approach

• The four ‘Cs’ - Coaching. Competent. Confident. Conversation.

• Pilot with small group

• Clear instructions

• Clear on assessment

• Limit reviewers to three or less

• Limit leaderboard to top 25 or less

• In some cases, feedback should be live

• Practice makes perfect

Like assessing live, ensure the rep and assessor know what good looks like

Assessing via Video Platform

Machine analysis for video-based assessment

Foundational Continuous Transformational Reactive

Sales Managers: The Foundation of the Four Sales Readiness Pillars

“We need our sellers to get ramped up and productive faster.”

“This new product is a game changer. How do we get our

reps ready tosell it?”

“This isn’t working – we need our reps to start selling to the C-suite.”

“Two of our competitors just merged. What’s our

message to buyers?”

Sales Management Readiness

You Wake Up Monday Morning…

• Emergency broadcast system

• Prep through simulation

• Manager accountability

Reactive: Days (Hours) to Mastery

Key Takeaways

• The 4 pillars of sales readiness: Foundational, Continuous, Transformational, Reactive

• Foundational – Consider a competency-based approach to onboarding (Agile Onboarding)

• Continuous – Encourage managed peer-to-peer learning

• Transformation – M&A, new markets, etc. are critical triggers for readiness

• Reactive – Readiness requirements go from days to hours

• Sales manager enablement forms the foundation of the readiness pillars

For more information on sales enablement & readiness, visit us at www.brainshark.com.

Questions?

Jim NinivaggiChief Readiness OfficerBrainsharklinkedin.com/in/jninivaggi@Jninivaggi