Chris Hens, President and COO of White Springs, presented at the Richardson client forum last week. The subject was in-context sales learning and reinforcement.
With a background in sales training, Chris has a deep understanding of the challenges companies face with respect to sales performance improvement. White Springs has worked with Complex Sale, Holden, Huthwaite, Miller Heiman, ValuSelling and SPI, among others, to automate sales and opportunity management processes and to connect those to a company’s CRM system.
Richardson has been, and continues to be, a leader in non-traditional (other-than-classroom) learning. They’ve engaged with White Springs for embedding and integrating their sales learning content into their established tools and business practices. Chris calls this embedded sales learning. (See graphic, courtesy of White Springs. Click for full-size.)
Why is this so important? In order to increase sales effectiveness, more salespeople must complying with the sales process that has been designed for their selling situation. When that process is modeled in software such as this and they are provided learning reinforcement within that software, it will increase compliance, contributing to sales performance improvement.
Whether you’re shopping for sales training, sales process work, Sales 2.0 tools, or CRM, be certain that your sales processes (qualification, discovery, opportunity management, etc.) are top-of-mind. The vendors you should consider must have the proven ability to support technology-enabled selling and learning. ES Research has done a considerable amount of research in this area.
Filed under: CRM, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Pipeline, Research, Sales 2.0, Sales Training Companies, Technology, sales process | Tagged: Chris Hens, Complex Sale, CRM, Holden, Huthwaite, Miller Heiman, SPI, ValuSelling, White Springs
This is an excellent article Dave. One of my gripes with regards to performance improvement is the over-importance of managing efficiency in types of activities that aren’t integral to the whole effectiveness of the sales process.
Part of the general problem is that companies/sales people don’t realise that the sales process doesn’t come from the business solutions that they use ie. CRM, outlook, internet etc. but from within the company… sounds very zen I know.
Your point about embedded learning stresses the importance not only in aligning sales aids with the company process but more importantly remaining focused on the job in hand. Thanks
I usually advise my clients when they are shopping for CRM, there must be at least one person that knows the sales process inside-out involved in the decision making. A good CRM system should be able to adapt to the company’s processes and not the other way around. In cases where the company’s sales team are not using a common system, then a CRM can help get everyone on the same standardize process.