Global Technology Leader

Client: Global Technology Leader
Industry: Technology
Services: Virtual Instructor-led Training, RAIN Sales Prospecting, 9 Habits of Extreme Productivity, Coaching

Challenge

2020/2021 was one of the most difficult times the world has experienced. The sales landscape completely shifted, and like many other organizations, one of the world’s largest technology leaders struggled to navigate customer engagement changes, including prospecting and customer meetings. 

This impacted its sellers, especially newer ones, significantly. 

While our client has a reputation for hiring the best of the best. Some newer sellers didn’t have the fluency skills or the opportunities to practice what they needed to be successful in their first few months. As a result, the business saw an increase in the time to first opportunity, and pipeline coverage was one-third of what it historically needed to be successful. 

The company was on a mission to provide its field sales representatives with a clearly defined way to be customer ready and create a trio of programs to accelerate sales onboarding and 10x sales success.  

Solutions

The company turned to RAIN Group to create one of the three programs: a highly tailored prospecting and productivity combo course.

The project team knew prospecting as a skill can be viewed as a 101 sales concept and if the training program didn't resonate with their audience, it would run the risk of further contributing to the business challenge.

The two organizations conducted a deep discovery to ensure the needs of the sellers were understood and could be addressed via a programmatic learning experience. What resulted was a customized program specific to this client about how to prospect at their company.

The course covered concepts from RAIN Sales Prospecting and 9 Habits of Extreme Productivity.

Sellers learned to prospect with value, build multi-touch attraction campaigns, create time for prospecting activities, and more.

Each module included four key components: 

Pre-work: Delivered via microlearning, short videos, and interactive exercises, the pre-work introduced participants to key concepts and models, minimizing ‘knowledge transfer’ during classroom sessions. 
Classroom session: A virtual instructor-led session focused on practice, application, and feedback. Sessions were highly interactive and collaborative, leading to an exceptional learner experience. 
Application assignments: Occurred after each module and helped participants apply new skills to real-life sales situations.   
Application coaching: Occurred between modules where learners worked with a coach to refine skills and were held accountable for implementing new skills on-the-job.

The program was initially deployed in EMEA. By continuously sharing business impact metrics, the program team was able to support additional regions in launching and embedding the program. The program is being embedded by the global onboarding team and will be offered to sellers in all regions.  

Results

The benefits achieved by leveraging the Kirkpatrick model fall into the following categories: 

Increased win rate: Participants achieved a win rate +15% higher than comparative peers who didn’t participate in the program.
Increased volume of quality pipeline creation: Supporting the ability of sellers to have the skills needed to be customer ready resulted in an X3 faster time to first opportunity creation.  
Proficiency with productivity: Participants closed/won an opportunity in less than one-third of the time of non-participants (comparative data). 
Participants' confidence increased from an average of 68% (3.4/5) to 92% (4.6/5)

In addition, average customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores of 4.5+ (out of 5) were achieved for the program in all regions and there was exceptionally positive feedback from all sales managers.

Together with this client, RAIN Group was recognized with a Brandon Hall Award for Best Sales Onboarding Program and a Gold Stevie® for Sales Training Program of the Year.