How to Transfer the Knowledge of your Best Sales People

Everyone knows the 80/20 rule – top performers deliver a vast majority of sales. You’ve got a gal in Omaha who can go head-to-head with your competition and still sell the living daylights out of your technology architecture solutions. But the bad news is that somehow for the rest of her colleagues that product is the “third rail”; they touch it and immediately burst into flames. You have a rep out of Venezuela who’s really selling the “solution” with a product set that even the guys in the home office can’t explain well. But your gal in Omaha doesn’t have the time or inclination to mentor every new sales person and the guy in Venezuela isn’t translating into English. Worse yet, if either leaves, that wisdom will walk out the door with them.

It’s time to clone your best sales reps and we’re not talking about Dolly the Sheep. The best solutions will leverage technology prudently, scale fast to your global force, communicate naturally and authentically and will get the job done because on the receiving end your sales people “trust” the wisdom of their peers far more than the marketing literature you give them. With these solutions you can capture the powerful differentiators leveraged in Omaha and the solution picture painted in Venezuela to share with everyone. New processes and technologies let you capture and deliver true and trusted knowledge better than ever before. It’s called “peer-based mobile learning “ and it is the future. It also offers relevant, trusted content pushed out to a global audience so they can access and use it when and where they want.

How do you get there? Believe, harvest, produce and deliver.

Believe it is possible.
Cynicism is a killer and part of the problem getting a solution rolled out to the people in the field is that we normally hedge our bets when the risk/reward ratio looks bad. Risks include wasting time with bad content, wasting money with poor adoption, generally initiating a public failure inside the company or not being able to measure an ROI. For most of our clients, they started cynical, threw crumby content out to the troops and big surprise; it didn’t go down like Kool-Aid. But the problem isn’t the problem we think it is. The problem is usually how we think about the problem.

Change your expectations for capturing and sharing the wisdom, passion and experience of your best people and make that vision your goal. Remember that the upside to this endeavor is increased revenue, higher margins, and shorter sales cycles. Respect the problem and the inherent complexities of it and show up ready to attack them. And most importantly: sell it internally so your program doesn’t die on the vine.

Harvest the knowledge
Press record and capture what you hear from the people that have been in the trenches. When you interview them for sales stories you might like to ask leading questions like a reporter does instead of ones that can be answered yes and no. And most importantly, dig deep into what went wrong with the sale before things went well and what was done about it. Rosy stories where sales people are perfect do nothing for credibility or listener’s attention. It’s the conflict that keeps us entertained; Good versus Evil when Evil is looking like a real contender. If you can find the dramatic tension of a good bedtime story you’ll have content that is compelling enough to be heard, respected and utilized.

produce
Lots of content does not mean you have lots of knowledge. If you have several stories that address the same need it doesn’t mean they are all created equal. Be clear about what is and isn’t content that you’d personally listen to and sift with an ear for trustable voices, big aha’s and dramatic turnarounds. Remember, this is “edutainment” at its most critical, if it doesn’t have any sizzle no one will get to the steak. While you are transcribing, listen for voices more than content, if the story is there you can find it later, but if the voice is fake it won’t matter what they say.

Deliver
Deliver to a global audience using multiple mediums and formats. Today there are more ways than ever to share and deliver content. That can be both the good news and bad. The problem: no two people want it exactly the same way. Some have and use all the new toys – Blackberry’s, iPods, iPhones, instant messaging and more. Some like it but don’t have the hardware or know how to use it. Some want it in paper, some want it online, others are mobile.

Podcasts can be an attractive solution for this agenda but be warned, it is only part of the solution. How many of you target audiences have and use iPods? How many have iTunes? How many have the hardware to connect up in their car? How many know how to subscribe to a podcast there is many a slip betwixt a cup and a lip and if you don’t start smart it’ll be a rough landing.

Remember, your top sales people can and do relate their victories and defeats but often to a limited audience. Capture that wisdom and you’ve cloned a winner. Share that wisdom well and you’ve got a huge leg-up on the competition not to mention on the ramp-up time for the next generation of superstars.

About the Author

Tim Keelan, president of StoryQuest, is an expert on learning enablement in the enterprise environment. Tim’s clients include Lucent, Keane, RSA, and Miller Heiman.

Tim can be reached at 888-263-6976. To learn more about how you can empower learning in your organization using cutting edge technology and advanced behavioral theory, visit us on the web at www.StoryQuest.us

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