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Norman Behar is chairman and managing director of the Sales Readiness Group (SRG). He has over 25 years of senior sales management experience and is recognized as a thought leader in the sales training industry. His blog posts and whitepapers are frequently featured in leading sales enablement publications including ATD, TrainingIndustry.com, and Selling Power.

Norman Behar

Here's a look at ATD's most popular posts from 2015 on the Sales Enablement Community of Practice.

6 Most Viewed Blog Posts From the ATD Sales Enablement Community in 2015

Norman Behar details three common characteristics of top-performing sales teams: quality sales conversations, capability to present value, and effective sales coaching.

What High-Performing Sales Teams Have in Common

Sales professionals rarely think they need more sales training. Norman Behar outlines sales training design and positioning strategies for addressing this common sales enablement challenge.

How to Respond to “I Don’t Need More Sales Training”

Many sales leaders focus solely on sales results when they should focus on managing sales behaviors. Sales enablement expert Norman Behar explains.

Why You Can't Just Monitor Sales Results

Managing sales performance is arguably the most important skill for sales managers and consists of the following four steps: communicate expectationsmonitor and manage specific behaviorsmonitor resultsprovide regular feedback. Unfortunately, managers tend to hyper-focus on the third area, “monitor results,” without realizing that results are backward looking (lagging performance indicator) and are really contingent on the other steps. Perhaps the most overlooked step is to communicate expectations clearly. In other words, does your sales team really understand what you want them to do (behaviors) and what you want them to achieve (results)? Holding Sales Reps Accountable Starts With Clear Expectations Sales managers often confuse what they think communicated clearly with what sales reps have actually taken away from the discussion. This is because managers often use vague language or poorly drafted emails that are not specific enough to be understood and internalized by the recipient.   For example, a manager may send out an email saying: "We are tracking behind this quarter and need to take our game to the next level.” However, this statement is pretty close to meaningless. At best, a sales rep will understand that results are not as good as they need to be—and that they need to work harder. While this may be true, it lacks clarity and purpose. Additionally, it doesn’t address what specific behaviors are expected from each individual sales rep. Communication Guidelines for Setting Clear Expectations To avoid confusion, managers should make sure that they clearly set expectations by adhering to several communication guidelines, including: Personalize the communication and make sure it is realistic. The communication should be specific to the sales rep you are speaking with, not a general message that could be interpreted as not applying to them.State the desired result(s). Make sure your communication includes what you want them to achieve.Include the behaviors required to produce these results. These are the specific actions that, if performed well, should lead to the desired result.Define metrics for assessment including the time frame. It should be clear how you will measure performance and over what period of time.Check for understanding. Have the sales rep recap their understanding of your expectations.Follow up in writing. Send an email recapping your communication, making sure it adheres to the guidelines listed above. It’s also important to remember that the mutual goal is to achieve results, as well as keep the message upbeat and encouraging. Consider again the previous example, a sales manager would have a much better chance at helping reps achieve quota if they used the following type of personalized communication: “To achieve your quarterly sales goal of $500,000 this quarter, you will need to close an additional $267,000 by the end of the quarter (December 31). In order to accomplish this goal, I would like you to conduct in-person meetings with at least five of the seven customers that are in the “agreement” stage of your sales pipeline by next Friday (December 12). Given your history of success with customers (70 percent close rate of opportunities in agreement stage), this should allow you to exceed your goal if you can get these meetings set quickly. Please let me know if this makes sense to you and what steps you will take following this discussion.” Then be sure to pause, listen to the response, and check for understanding. Next, you can respond with: “Great. Let’s plan on reconnecting next Monday (December 8) to review where you stand on appointments, discuss the specific goals for each meeting, and how I can help.” In a sales world hyper-focused on results, it is easy to lose sight of the importance of clear communication to set expectations. However, only by setting clear expectations can we hold our sales reps accountable and proactively help them succeed. If you would like more insights on how to improve sales management skills, I encourage you to get a free copy of this whitepaper on Developing Great Frontline Sales Managers.

How to Hold Sales Reps Accountable

   If you would like more information on this topic, please download our whitepaper, Maximizing the Effectiveness of Sales Training.There is an ongoing, evolving debate about the best way to deliver sales training programs. At the center of this debate is the ongoing tension among traditional instructor-led classroom training (ILT), virtual instructor-led training (VILT), and self-paced e-learning (e-learning).The truth of the matter is that all three of these delivery methods can be effective ways to help training participants understand, apply, and adopt new selling skills. The real key is in designing a program that has clear objectives, executive sponsorship, relevancy, and sustainability.It is also important to understand the advantages and limitations of each delivery method so that you can design a program the can achieve your goals, and fit within your budget. Instructor-Led TrainingSales organizations have traditionally trained their sales teams in-person using a multi-day training format. Training participants can glean best practices or lessons-learned from expert instructors, share experiences with peers, and participate in face-to-face role-plays.Personalizing the training experience is easy in instructor-led training (ILT). In the classroom, instructors are empowered to deviate or augment content to make the class more relevant. This can occur before the training takes place or happen on the fly based on feedback from the participants.However, physically putting sales teams in a room for an extended period of time does have a number of drawbacks. Chief among these are the impact of travel costs and classroom time on budget, employee productivity, and sales goals.Given the geographically dispersed makeup of a typical sales force, travel will almost certainly be required, which equates to both a substantial expense, as well as a decrease in the time that salespeople are out in the field actually selling.Companies will often try to work around this issue by scheduling sales training around another event, such as an annual sales meeting. Unfortunately, this is often counter-productive, as an exhausted and overwhelmed salesperson seldom makes for an ideal student.On the learning side, classroom training can be a challenge for many sales people, both in format and in impact on daily productivity. Sales people are notorious for having short attention spans and find it difficult to be taken out of the field for extended time periods, creating a negative environment for the training itself. In addition, many programs tend to cover too much content, and studies show that learners do not thrive given these aggressive “drink from the fire hose” approaches.Virtual Instructor-Led TrainingVirtual instructor-led training (VILT) has grown in popularity over the past several years. VILT combines many of the strengths of instructor-led training and is typically less expensive and more convenient for participants.In live virtual classrooms, participants have the ability to interact with the facilitator and each other both over the telephone and using standard online interactions, such as chat, polling, white boarding, and breakout rooms, which are available in most virtual classroom training platforms.Like a traditional classroom setting, the instructor is there to answer questions as they arise, offering students immediate clarity on content. This approach offers both two-way communication and live feedback, allowing the instructor to tailor the content based on the learners’ development needs and questions. For sales training, it is critical to keep the level of engagement and interaction high. As such, VILT class sizes should be limited to 12 to 15 participants. This is in contrast to product trainings, which are typically information-based sessions and, therefore, can accommodate a much large audience.In terms of convenience, participants can take courses from home, at the office or on the road, avoiding any break in productivity. VILT courses can be scheduled as a series of weekly or bi-weekly training sessions (typically 2 to 3 hours per session) allowing participants to remain engaged in the sales training and still attend to their day-to-day sales responsibilities..VILT also eliminates the travel burden associated with in-person training. Workers participate in courses from where they are, and there is no need to fly in or prepare accommodations for expert trainers. This, in turn, helps minimize costs.In order to maximize its effectiveness, VILT courses must be specifically designed for the unique characteristics of the virtual environment. Effectively designed VILT content offers participants frequent interaction and collaboration opportunities using chat, polling, peer discussions and role-playing exercises. This helps keep learners engaged and contributing.E-LearningE-learning, defined here as self-paced online training, is effective for certain types of training and offers unparalleled convenience. With this style of training, workers can fit in learning when it works best for them, avoiding valuable peak sales hours during the day.While the economics and convenience of eLearning are compelling, its effectiveness for improving sales skills is questionable. Traditionally, self-paced training has been best suited topics where the content is static or data-driven, such as compliance and technical training.On the other hand, training certain soft skills like sales skills requires live instructors so that trainees can practice their new skills, receive feedback and coaching, ask questions, and interact with peers. More recently, however, e-learning has played a greater role in selling skills programs.While participant engagement and skills application are far better addressed in classrooms (live or virtual), e-learning can serve as a great sales training primer to help participants understand key skills and concepts and come to training better prepared to apply these skills.E-learning also is proving a great way to reinforce traditional training because it can be delivered as short, two- to three-minute modules that allow for on-demand access on laptops, tablets, and mobile phones.In SummaryThe following chart provides a summary of how the above listed training delivery methods can be used to form a blended training program that results in sustainable skills improvement.

Selecting the Best Sales Training Delivery Method

Organizations engage in sales training programs for numerous reasons. Despite best intentions, these programs too often fall short of the mark and fail to deliver the business results that the executive sponsors were originally looking for.Regardless of the quality of the training delivery, the failure is frequently cause by a lack of clear expectation of what is supposed to happen differently on the day after the training, together with no post-training reinforcement plan in place. As numerous studies have shown, unless there is a robust reinforcement program in place, sales professionals will likely forget 80 percent of the sales training material within 90-120 days after the training is delivered.There are many options to consider in a comprehensive reinforcement program, including on-demand reinforcement videos, intermittent testing, periodic role plays, one-on-one coaching, and group reinforcement sessions. In my experience, each of these can be an effective component to build into a reinforcement program. But the overall initiative will likely fail without the direct involvement and engagement from the sales managers. A key question every organization should ask before launching a new sales training initiative is what will the sales manager do before, during, and after training to support the program and help ensure adoption of the new skills?  Before training Preview the training. Before the training program kicks off, it is important that the sales manager receive an overview of the material being covered and understand what the expectations will be on the manager to support the training. A condensed management overview session or training primer is important so that the managers do not feel blind-sided by the material, and can ask any questions they may have about the training before the participants are involved. This is also a good time to review the implementation program and discuss the critical role the sales manager will play in reinforcing the concepts and skills. Communicate with the team. The second critical action the sales manager should take before the training kicks off is to communicate to their sales professionals their commitment to the program. It is important for the sales manager to show enthusiasm and sponsorship for the initiative.They can really influence the tone and intensity of the program just by picking out a few key topics that they feel are important and discussing them in a team meeting, email, or one-on-one meetings. During trainingBe visible and participate. Ideally, it is best to have the managers attend sales training with their teams. While some might argue that it diminishes the interaction and openness of dialogue, we find just the opposite. A busy manager or executive who takes the time to attend the training, shows interest and enthusiasm for the program, and even participates in the exercises and role plays sends a powerful message to the sales team that this is important for everyone. Minimize disruptions. Another action the sales manager can take during the training is to minimize disruptions and competing priorities during the training and allow the sales professionals to really immerse themselves in the training event. All too often, though, sales training is squeezed around end of quarter reports, annual sales meetings, or client fire drills. To the extent that the sales manager can clear the schedule and deflect the typical influx of distractions that compete for a sales professionals time each day, the more they will be able to focus on the training material and retain the desired information. After training Communicate follow-up expectations. It is critical that the sales manager knows what his reps are supposed to do on the day following the training. Will the new tools be available? Will there be assessment questions? Are there follow up sessions scheduled? This is an important step because it is the manager’s responsibility to clarify what happens next and set the stage for how the sales professionals will apply the skills. Preferably, each participant will develop an action plan coming out of the training as to how they will apply the skills over the next 30/60/90 days. It’s important that the manager review these plans and be prepared to support and follow up on the execution of these activities. Commit to a reinforcement plan. One way to clarify expectations of everyone involved and specify what is supposed to happen after the training is to work with the training provider (internal or external) to create a customized “Sales Manager Reinforcement Guide” that outlines the activities and steps the sales manager can take to support the program, and suggest a timeline for completion. Items in the guide include a summary of key concepts, a checklist of activities and role plays that might be appropriate, and suggestions for topics to be discussed in team meetings and one-on-one coaching sessions. Ultimately, the guide becomes and backbone of the training program once the participants have finished the live training sessions and return to their selling roles where they can apply the newly developed skills. Bottom line: a key driver of sales training success is how will you engage your sales managers before, during, and after the training. If you would like more information on this topic, please download our whitepaper, Maximizing the Effectiveness of Sales Training.

How to Ensure that Sales Training Sticks

The reason both dimensions (proficiency and motivation) are important is that the combined assessment points to the action the manager should take to address the skill gap.By plotting these skills on a matrix, managers can readily determine what skills to coach, generally where proficiency and motivation are average (see Graph 1); and what other actions such as directing, training, counseling, and empowering, sales managers should consider when skills require more than coaching (see Graph 2).This Development Matrix assumes that you first conduct a comprehensive skills assessment of a salesperson on a 1-5 scale. Let’s see how the Development Matrix can quickly help you determine when coaching is the appropriate management action to improve skills.Empowering (High/High)Assume you have a salesperson on your team who is a great negotiator, rating extremely high in both proficiency and motivation. Here we recommend that the appropriate management action is empowerment, not coaching. In other words, you should increase this salesperson’s control and accountability.     For example, you can do this by expanding the salesperson’s initiative by letting them manage a complex negotiation without your direct involvement.The benefit to you is that by shifting more responsibility to a highly skilled and motivated salesperson, you create “leverage” by having the salesperson do more of the work (and solving their own problems), thus freeing up your own time.  Caution: some managers have trouble letting go and truly empowering a salesperson, so be careful not to empower with one hand but then take away with the other by micro-managing the details.Training (Low Skill/High Motivation)Often with new salespeople we find that they aren’t proficient in many skills, but are nonetheless highly motivated. In these cases, coaching isn’t effective because these salespeople don’t yet have a baseline level of proficiency. Instead, training is the most effective management action to improve skills.     Training differs from coaching in that it tends to be much more structured and less customized than coaching. Sales training is typically done in small groups, not one-to-one, although ramping up new salespeople may be an exception to this rule. Also, remember that most adult learners forget 80 to 85 percent of what they learn within 30 days of a training event. So, to make training effective, you must follow it up with on-going reinforcement, including coaching.Directing (Low Skill/Low Motivation)When a specific skill rates low in both proficiency and motivation, you need to direct, not coach. That means give specific orders or instructions on how, what, and when to accomplish a task. In other words, you are telling the salesperson what to do.      As a manager, there are many times when it is appropriate to direct, including when someone is new in their position. That being said, having to continually direct a salesperson is a very inefficient use of time, and it should be used sparingly with high performers who typically don’t like to be micro-managed.Performance Counseling (High Skill/ Low Motivation)Performance Counseling is appropriate when the salesperson has previously demonstrated high proficiency in a certain skill, but for whatever reason now has low motivation. One common skill area in which we see this is prospecting.     With Performance Counseling, your goal is to investigate and intervene to address motivational or attitudinal issues that negatively impact job performance. Performance Counseling is a complex management action that requires great care. Of course, always contact your HR department before attempting Performance Counseling, and be sure to keep the conversation focused on observable behaviors, not judgments.Coaching (Average Skill/Average Motivation)Coaching is the most common management action to develop selling skills because coaching assumes a baseline level of proficiency and is great for fine tuning skills. That is why the “Coaching Diamond” takes up the most area on the Development Matrix.        The reason coaching is so powerful is that as skills go from “average” to “high” they move to the Empowerment quadrant, freeing up your time. While coaching can’t address every development need, it is highly effective in improving “average” skills. For any sales manager interested in becoming a better sales coach, the Development Matrix is powerful tool that will help you quickly determine the appropriate development action for improving the skills of your salespeople, including when to coach. If you would like more information on this topic, please download our whitepaper, Sales Coaching for Improved Performance.**[If you want to maximize the performance of your sales team, there is almost universal agreement that you must master the skill of Sales Coaching. This makes sense because sales coaching provides the greatest point of leverage when it comes to improving sales team effectiveness.Even a small improvement in quota attainment can make a huge difference when you multiply that by seven to 10 sales reps (the typical number of direct reports for a sales manager). But there are cases when sales coaching is not an appropriate management action.Sometimes we assume coaching can solve any problem. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.  For example, you don’t coach someone who is chronically late to work.So how can a manager systematically identify skills and behaviors that are best addressed by coaching rather than by other management actions?Start by assessing the skills of your salespeople. When assessing sales skills, it is helpful to think about this from both a proficiency and motivation standpoint. A skill gap based on proficiency would typically involve a salesperson not being able to perform a skill because they don’t know how, whereas motivation gets to a lack of desire. As an example, a seasoned sales professional may have: excellent prospecting skills (high proficiency) but absolutely no desire to make cold calls (low motivation).](http://www.salesreadinessgroup.com/)** [](http://www.salesreadinessgroup.com/)

When NOT to Use Sales Coaching

It is often hard for sales people to make the transition to sales manager.  Part of the challenge is attributable to the inherently different job functions of a salesperson and a sales manager (individual contributor vs. manager of others). Each job requires a unique set of skills. While many sales organizations have comprehensive sales training programs in place, few (in our experience) have similar training programs for their frontline sales managers.  All too often, sales organizations resort to on-the-job training for their sales managers, which can be too slow, inconsistent, and runs the risk of becoming the most expensive type of training. In other words, the type of training that fails to achieve the desired results.  So what should you do in order to effectively develop frontline sales managers? New skills requiredLet’s first consider the extent of the training challenge.  Here some of the skills frontline sales managers need to master in order to succeed:recruiting and selecting the right team memberssetting team goals and prioritiesmanaging performancecoaching and developing selling skills in othersleading and motivating.Since the typical sales manager is promoted from the field, it is doubtful that many have had formal training in these skills—hence, the inherent challenge of making this initial career pivot. Comprehensive approach to sales management skill developmentGiven the wide range of new skills a typical sales manager needs to master, it’s unlikely that “one and done” training programs will be effective.  Consider implementing a more comprehensive sales management training program that includes ongoing reinforcement, coaching and follow-up.  Sales managers need to be given the chance to try out the concepts and tools, discuss real world application to their teams as well as receive feedback from their peers.Effective sales management training programs that produce long-term sustainable results use many of the same training concepts of Customized Sales Training. Here are five factors to consider when developing a training program designed to help your sales managers make their first major career pivot from salesperson to sales manager.#1 CustomizationEven though sales management skills and concepts tend to be more “industry neutral” as compared to selling skills, customization is still critical for increasing relevancy for sales managers.  It is important not to “force fit” the material into the industry, or leave it up to the participant to make the connection to their particular situation.  Effective customization is time intensive but worth the investment required to gain a deep understanding of the management challenges facing the sales managers.   #2 Executive sponsorshipExecutive sponsorship is absolutely critical to the implementation of a successful sales management program.  Not only do the executives need to be aware of the material, but they need to be engaged in the communication and kick-off of the program to ensure success.  We also recommend that senior management get actively involved in post-training reinforcement and application assignments.#3 Training workshop(s)Given the number of skills a sales manager must master, it may not be effective or practical to schedule intensive multi-day training events for sales managers.  You may want to consider delivering sales management training over a period of several months to support spaced learning and focus on each topic in more depth.  For example, we have worked with numerous clients who have introduced one major sales management skill per quarter.  This approach allows sufficient time for reinforcement and coaching sessions to ensure that each new skill is being mastered and consistently applied on the job. #4 Follow upAt the end of a training program, it is common for sales managers to ask: “Now what?” Unless you have a structured follow-up program in place, your program will run the risk of not achieving any long-term behavior change.  We recommend requiring participants in a sales management training program to create an individual action plan to outline how they will apply the concepts and tools over the next 30/60/90 days and share these plans with their supervisors. Participants should also be given in-the-field “assignments” to apply new skills and tools, which should then be reviewed in the subsequent reinforcement and coaching sessions.#5 ReinforcementPost-training reinforcement and coaching session are a great opportunity for sales managers to discuss real world management challenges with their peers in a “safe” environment. Reinforcement sessions provide a great opportunity to present materials, obtain feedback.    Making the career pivot to sales management is not an easy one and is often attempted little guidance or training.  With the appropriate training, this pivot can be the first step on the journey to a successful sales management career.  If you would like more information on this topic, please download our whitepaper, Developing Great Frontline Sales Managers.

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