Excellence in Sales Education – building a Learning Organization

Welcome to this collection of articles focusing on Excellence in Sales Education. In this series, we will explore top-notch practices, the most current trends, and hands-on advice for creating and executing outstanding sales training programs. By doing so, we aim to progress toward the development of a self-learning organization.

A contribution by Suchi Shinde and Prof. Dr. Markus Hesse, Oct 2023

In our 2^nd Article, let’s look at how to move from conducting training in your company to creating a Learning Organization. (Picture 1)

Picture 1: Rightsourcing ©: Holistic approach to developing a Self-learning Organization.

A Learning organization maintains a well-defined plan for enhancing its capabilities, complete with an established structure for implementing this plan. This structure encompasses a strategy for conducting assessments to identify skill gaps, delivering structured training, offering coaching, and implementing a change initiative to encourage adoption. The evaluation of the training’s effectiveness is carried out using clearly defined metrics and assessment approaches.

At an initial phase, it’s advisable to perform a targeted assessment of the sales organization by utilizing online quizzes and questionnaires.

These assessments can be categorized into various topics, including fundamental sales skills, advanced sales techniques, sales process, product knowledge, proficiency with tools, industry-specific expertise, competitive landscape, and more.

Once the skill gaps have been identified, they can be further analyzed to determine whether they are prevalent across the entire team or specific to individual members. This valuable insight is then employed to define the focus areas for e-learning modules, training sessions, or one-on-one coaching sessions.

Picture 2: Assess knowledge gaps to design the training program

After evaluating the skill gaps within the Sales organization, it is necessary to develop targeted learning modules aimed at bridging these gaps.

An effective sales training program should be dynamic and adaptable to changing market conditions and customer needs. Hence, the training modules should be built to address changing market-driven situations of the customers with industry-specific real-life examples. Here are the best practices from Rightsourcing based on which all Rightsourcing Training Modules are built.

Each module is built in the form of a shell model with a scientific basis & methodology at its core, the practical experience of our sales experts, the industry, and role-specific and customer-specific adaptations. The modularity allows knowledge to be generated effectively and is highly customized.

Picture 3: Rightsourcing ©: Rightsourcing Training Modules Design

Rightsourcing Coaching best practices entail a structured process where individuals or teams are provided with guidance, mentorship, and support to attain their objectives, enhance performance, cultivate skills, and maximize their potential.

Picture 4: Rightsourcing ©: Rightsourcing knowledge transfer concept

At Rightsourcing, this content is then transferred in line with the certified blended learning concept of the University of Economics and Management (FOM)

Through a sequence of well-organized interactions, feedback loops, and mentorship, the coaching is designed to assist individuals in surmounting challenges, strengthening their competencies, and fostering professional growth. Individual and short coaching sessions are conducted at regular intervals over a period of 6-12 months. The hybrid approach of knowledge transfer with integrated coaching has the advantage over the classic training approach that a sustainable behavioral change can be achieved.

The ‘Monitoring’ step in the picture above is essential in the Change process explained in the next Article 3 in order to Institutionalize the changes in the sales team.

It is essential to regularly review and update the Module content to ensure it remains relevant and aligned with your organization’s goals and the changing environment. Every 3 to 5 years the complete Training program content needs to be reviewed and updated.

Stay tuned for our next article (3^rd) where we shall address the best practices of implementing a change initiative to further encourage adoption in the organization. (in creating a Learning Organization)