Sufficient resources and executive support couldn't keep this sales training program afloat.
During the past seven years, the transportation and shipping industry was either in the middle of market commoditization or at the very end. But in late 2011, Maersk Line placed a big emphasis on a price leader differentiation strategy. We wanted to position ourselves as the Mercedes-Benz or the Singapore Airlines of shipping.
At the core of the differentiation strategy was the need for our salespeople to start selling value and moving away from selling price. To support the sales organization, there was a big sales initiative that would combine new sales processes, supportive tools, and IT systems. Underlying all of these changes would be a sales capability development program.
High hopes
The program was going to be a series of blended modules focusing on the new sales capabilities. Each module was a combination of two- to four-day face-to-face sessions, online work, and a certification process overseen by the company's sales excellence department. Initially there were eight modules that were identified, covering a wide range of sales capabilities. The program was designed through a three-way partnership between our sales excellence department, a supplier specialized in value selling, and my learning department. As you can imagine, this was going to be a huge investment in time (three-year program), money ($6+ million budget), and salespeople's time (more than 20 face-to-face days and countless days in online training).
But even though we had all the resources that we requested, executive sponsorship from the chief commercial officer, and a strong team, the program is widely considered a failure. Looking back, these are the main reasons for our failure:
Too complex. The sales process was a nine-step process. Basic psychology has proved that most people can only keep seven things in their head at a time, so expecting people to memorize nine steps for selling and then act "naturally" for the customer was doomed to fail.
No manager engagement. The business wanted to start with the sales reps, not the sales managers. So the first wave of training only included the sales reps, and the sales managers were not invited. Unsurprisingly, the managers did not take ownership of the program, nor did they drive the new behaviors when the sales reps got home.
Certification focus, not behavior change focus. The program included a robust certification process where the sales reps would have to work on a project after the course and submit their projects to the center team for certification. What we found was that once reps passed certification, they quickly reverted back to the old behaviors—and since the manager was not driving the behaviors, there were no sustained changes to performance.
Building expertise when we just needed competence. On some topics the sales excellence team believed we needed to build expertise, but that didn't always match with the needs of the customer. We thought we needed to build supply chain experts who could provide detailed calculations, but the reality was our customers were happy with simpler ways of showing value. A great deal of time was wasted building expertise capabilities and advanced supply chain calculation tools, when all we really needed were salespeople who could competently talk about what the customer values.
We didn't say "No." The sales excellence team had very, very strong opinions on what was required from the sales training and what the program should contain. At the time, my learning team knew things would not work (like it being too complex, or not including the sales managers), but we were not able to convince the rest of the project team. We spent too much time providing a great customer experience and not enough time fighting to stop bad ideas.
After 1.5 years (and two of the eight sales modules), revenue continued to drop. The CEO brought in a new chief commercial officer, and started moving the company away from a differentiation strategy into a cost leadership strategy (that's to say, the Ryanair of shipping). It also was evident that our sales behaviors did not change. When the sales excellence team would visit local sales teams, few people were following the value selling approach. When this lack of change was combined with the significant costs of the program (money, sales rep time, resources, etc.), the program was killed.
The makeover
The sales excellence team was disbanded into other areas of the business, and a new sales excellence team was formed. At the same time, our learning team reshuffled some responsibilities and I was given the new task of working with the new chief commercial officer and the new sales excellence team to build a simpler approach, and support it with a new development program.
In my new role, I knew I needed to learn from our past mistakes. These were the principles that guided me in building the new solution:
Simplicity. Complexity is easy, and simplicity is tough. We had to transform complex topics and skills into easy-to-remember behaviors. We moved to a five-step selling process that could fit everything between a phone call and a major tender.
Instead of worrying about what step they were on, the salespeople could easily integrate it into a natural conversation with their customers. This simplicity also helped us overcome our global population barriers. Our programs are taught in English, but the salespeople work in their local language. Anything we wanted them to do had to be so simple that it crossed the translation barrier without a second thought.
Leader-led development. If the manager does not own the development, then it will die when the participants return home. The new sales program began with sales managers attending three days of development before their sales reps started, and then the sales managers attended the sales rep program with their team, acting as table coaches and leading some of the exercises. The managers took ownership of the program in the training, and they continued it through simple sales coaching.
Local behavior change. Our company is great at delivering metrics, hence why a global certification process became a tick-the-box exercise. For our new sales program, certification was left up to the manager. Instead of tracking certification levels, the sales excellence team tracked how often the sales managers were running joint sales calls (where the manager would observe the sales rep with a customer, and then provide coaching after the visit). By focusing on the frequency of joint sales calls and not certification levels, managers felt less pressure to certify people who weren't living up to the standards.
Hygiene vs. differentiation. To make sure we weren't wasting time building expertise in areas our customers didn't appreciate, we became ruthless on what we considered hygiene behaviors and what we considered differentiators. When it is a hygiene behavior, we focus on doing the minimally acceptable level that still works. That saves us time and resources so we can invest more in differentiation skills.
In our new sales program, there is no expertise course on supply chain calculations (which would be hygiene). Instead we focused heavily on account business planning and negotiation (both skills have a broader impact on our customers and our business).
Courage to say "No." The project failure made my learning team rethink our role, and how we provide value to our customers. We adopted a new mantra for the team: "We are problem solvers, not course providers." Our role is to solve business problems, not design and deliver training programs for our internal customers.
That new mindset started us down the path to becoming a true transformation partner, and not just a source of e-learning or training. In the new sales program project team, the learning professionals were the primary designers and had a full seat at the decision table.
Transformation completed
As of 2015, the company had stabilized its revenue stream, and by 2016 we were growing our volume. These two feats are impressive when you realize that at the same time market prices had collapsed by roughly 60 percent. While the business improvements are the combination of many different initiatives, the new sales program was seen as a significant contributor. One of the biggest success factors was that our sales managers were the drivers of the transformation.
We measured the following improvements among sales managers who attended our program versus a control group:
- 27% increase in joint sales calls/coaching sessions
- 3% increase in overall revenue from their sales teams
- 5% increase in sales bonus payout for their sales team due to improved strategic alignment.
For our efforts, the combination of the new sales excellence team and my learning department won Maersk's Team of the Year award in 2015.
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