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How to increase attainment by 14% in 3 months

May 11, 2022

Most Sales Onboarding or Mandatory Sales Training programs focus on product training, tools training, and sales skills training. While they are important, it does not guarantee performance acceleration in the first 100 days.

Leveraging Sales AI solutions, a Fortune 500 company was able to improve sales attainment of new hires by 14% in just 3 months. Based on similar successes achieved by some of our clients that led us to win ATD and Bradon Hall Awards five years in a row, I've put together a 4P framework that seems to deliver predictable success even in new hire situations.

1) Persona - Problem - Product Conversation Mastery

Sales new hires can start setting up meetings in week 2 if they are clear on whom to contact, what problems to listen for, and which products are relevant in each case. A detailed understanding of products is a continuous learning process and does not need to be the first step.

I have seen many complex infographics, ppts, and elaborate videos confusing sales reps on the persona-problem-product connection. Sales reps have to finally convert all of this information overload into high-impact sales conversations. So, why not train them to have these conversations directly via conversation simulations?

Conversational Scenario Simulations train sales reps to experience the voice of stakeholders based on their role, industry, and maturity; listen for problems (explicit and implicit), qualify the opportunity by asking questions, and test out the product proposition.

Based on the industry assigned or type of accounts (Greenfield/Existing/ Competitor Shop) they can practice highly relevant scenarios to gain confidence for their first qualification call.

2) Process Playbook

Sales new hires can start creating and closing deals in month 2 if they could get turn-by-turn guidance on their first deal.

Most sales process training consists of a bunch of slides with frameworks, chevrons, arrows, and process flows with one big assumption "one size fits all" whether it is a new deal, renewal deal, large deal, or a highly competitive deal the sales rep is dealing with. A process needs to convert into a series of high-impact actions. So, why not provide them with step-by-step guidance on closing their first deal from finding the right partners, using the right email templates with the right collateral, connecting with the right sales engineers, CX manager, and product managers, to generating a quote, to asking the right discovery questions, finding the right contract template, etc.

A "Guided Selling" solution that can proactively nudge sales reps with the next steps along with enablement content and people support can help sales reps focus on closing than demystifying the sales process.

3) Performance Plan

Sales new hires can start meeting quota in quarter 2 if they have a data-tested plan to meet quota. How many deals need to be closed in 6 months of what types (new business, upsell, renewals)? Which accounts to focus on and which partners to engage? Which product bundles and promotions to focus on?

Sales motions and trends are different in different companies and past experiences do not always translate into immediate success resulting in extended ramp times. What if new hires could learn the patterns of early success from the top-performing reps?

Rep DNA analysis can help identify the drivers of rep, deal, and account success by role, region, and segment and provide statistically derived 30-60-90-day activity and sales results milestones.

4) Personalized Pull and Push Enablement

Sales new hires can predictably attain their Y1 success if they are provided with conversational pull and push support in the flow of work to accelerate deals, acquire key behaviors, and achieve sales milestones.

New hires are lost in their first 100 days trying to learn about products, tools, processes, and people while chasing a quota. What if they had a conversational support system that could respond to all their questions accurately with contextual relevance.

Advanced Knowledge Engines embedded in Teams, Slack, or CRM systems can help respond to a variety of questions without much training effort. They can pull up exact answers from deep within documents as well as proactively nudge with contextually relevant content. This can help sales reps get more time to sell and be in front of customers than spending time finding information.

Conclusion

Sales AI solutions can provide hyper-personalized enablement for predictable sales results at scale. A combination of "Conversational Enablement Solutions", "Data-Driven Coaching", "Guided Selling", and "Conversation Simulation" solutions can shorten sales ramp by 3-6 months generating millions of dollars for large organizations.