Sales Training Facilitator Guide
This facilitator guide was designed and developed with Gagne’s Nine Events in mind as a concept project for an audience of sales staff at a tech company to learn about science-based selling techniques. It is intended to be the first session of many, and will allow staff to engage in a Case Study between two different companies that will eventually lead into science-based sales techniques (in future sessions) and allow learners to practice their skills through roleplay and scripting with plenty of opportunity for feedback.
Overview
Audience: Sales staff at a tech company
Responsibilities: Instructional Design, Visual Design, Storyboarding, Action Mapping, Instructor-Led Training
Authoring Tools Used: Google Suite, Mindmeister
Management at Byrne Tech Solutions have noticed that Sales have been stagnant and slightly declining over the past fiscal year. This trend couldn’t possibly continue, as the lower numbers would affect the company’s bottom line, and potentially end in layoffs or the closure of the company as a last resort. With a determination to turn the numbers around, management sought to implement new sales strategies with a focus on science-based selling.
After discussing with the management team and some sales representatives in a discovery call, I determined that the strategies being used among the different sales representatives were not consistent, and in some cases, there was no method to the way sales calls were conducted. We determined that the vast majority of the staff had had no formal training in properly conducting sales calls in a way that promoted closing the sale and building/maintaining positive relationships with their clients.
After looking at multiple solutions, we decided to develop a series of hands-on ILT sessions following Gagne’s Nine Events that focused on the sales representatives seeing data in two Case Studies in order to instill the value and obvious benefits of science-based selling techniques. Research has shown that science-based selling techniques are quite effective at closing sales and developing positive relationships, which is what we wanted to begin with. With this specific solution, sales representatives would gain the knowledge required to sell effectively, and have a space to practice those skills and gain valuable feedback on improvement.
Our overall goal at the center of this project was to increase the sales revenue by 25% overall by the end of the next calendar year (December). The steps taken to reach this goal are outlined in detail below. After meeting with all relevant parties involved in the project, the client agreed on a timeline, and we began the process of creating the ILT.
Process and Thoughts
Creating the Action Map
Upon meeting with the subject matter experts involved in the project, we began to document successful sales strategies from research on social psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics with the overall goal in mind and developed a list of actions that would result in the increased likelihood of closing the sale based on the previous research done, and available data. Other high-priority actions were chosen thoughtfully to align with the greatest ROI calculated by the data available from research studies. To measure the progress toward the goal, we established that at the end of the next calendar year, the revenue from all sales representatives would be tallied and compared to the previous year.
Creation of a Facilitator Guide
Once the action map had undergone two rounds of feedback, I began developing a modified facilitator guide that I utilized during my time as an educator. The guide was designed to incorporate these high-priority actions into an experience, which would take multiple sessions and revolve around utilizing the skills to reach the goal. The first session utilized data from two companies with very different sales trends and allows the learners to read a Case Study based on each company and understand what the company tried, as well as their sales methods. The strategies implemented by the companies represents actual strategies from research on social psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics.
To ensure that the sessions align with adult learning theories, I implemented the following structure in the Facilitator Guide:
-Gaining Attention: The session starts with a thought provoking question, asking the learners to think and observe similarities and differences in data for two different companies (the phenomenon/hook). This will activate their curiosity, wondering what happened internally for the trends to appear as they do.
-Listing the Objective: The objective for the session/each activity will be presented both verbally and on their Activity Sheets, so the learner is aware of why they are being asked to do something, as well as how it will help them.
-Recalling Prior Learning: The session contains a discussion on how the learners measure success in sales, as well as what it means to them (and what they themselves do) to be successful in sales.
-Presenting the Content: The content will be presented on their Activity Sheets and in the Case Studies to let the learners do most of the heavy lifting. The “instructor” will be there to facilitate the activities and learning and guide the learners towards the correct conclusions and ways of thinking.
-Providing Guidance: Tips are built into the Facilitator’s Guide to allow the facilitator to provide guidance to the learners and aid them in understanding the concepts and point their thinking in the right direction to come to the appropriate conclusions. In future sessions, targeted feedback will provide prompts and suggested wordings for questions to elicit responses.
-Eliciting Performance: In future sessions, the performance task will be primarily roleplay and scripting, as well as the development of flowcharts and tools for the learner to use on the job in their daily work. For this specific session, the performance task will focus on the skill of analyzing data and using those observations to come to conclusions.
-Providing Feedback: Feedback in this session will be based on the responses of the learners to the discussions and activities. There will already be expected “answers” to the questions asked, and the feedback serves to guide the learner to the right conclusion/response based on the task at hand.
-Assessing Performance: The provided Activity Sheet for the session will be reviewed by the facilitator, checking the responses to make sure that everyone has forumated the correct conclusions. Any misunderstandings will need to be addressed immediately at the start of the next session. Future sessions will have different ways to assess including interviews, evaluations, and observations of the learner performing the skills.
-Enhancing Retention and Transfer: By providing the learner with background information on the “why” behind what they need to learn, it will aid in their understanding of the purpose of the instructional program, which is to help them develop skills and be successful. The activities in this session willdevelop skills that will be built on in subsequent sessions.
For the purposes of this series of sessions, we want the learners to be able to understand and successfully apply the science-based sales techniques in a safe environment, and this would be done through roleplay with peers. The structure would consist of giving each pair of learners a role as sales representative or client, as well as background information on what they are trying to sell and the specific technique to practice.
Visual Mockups - Design and Layout
The Facilitator Guide was designed to be easy to use and understand. I wanted to include tips for the facilitator in terms of assessment and even possible prompts to say out loud in terms of wording the questions.
To make it have a level of uniqueness, I included differentiation strategies as well as clips from the Activity Sheet to the facilitator understands which portion to focus on and how to handle misconceptions on the part of the learners. Since this guide is intended to be part of a multiple session sequence, information was placed at the start to familiarize ourselves with what we did previously, what we figure out in the current session, and what we will do in the next sessions.
Creating the Learning Plan
After the basic structure and format of the Facilitator Guide was developed and agreed upon, I created a Learning Plan that would be the “agenda” for the session. Each subsequent guide would follow the same format, but the content will be different based on the topic being presented. The learning plan was divided into segments with a title and a short description, as well as an approximate time to spend on the segment.
Creating the Learner Activity Sheet
To enhance retention and allow learners to record their thoughts and reference them easily, I developed an Activity Sheet that would then be referenced throughout the session. Most of the segments had some sort of task for the learner to do where they are either reading, writing, or analyzing data or information based on the specific segment in the Learning Plan. The idea was to have these documents handed in at the end of the session, and they would serve as an assessment of sorts, to ensure all learners are on the right path and forming the right conclusions.
This was developed in a way to make the instructional program more hands-on and inquiry-based as opposed to just talking at people. Forming one’s own conclusions and sharing ideas with peers, as well as to the whole group, is a great way to build collaboration skills and share ideas.
After sharing with the client the first prototype, I implemented their feedback into the final deliverable, which included adding some suggested prompts for the facilitator, as well as sample student responses to look for that are correct and would allow the facilitator to move on in the Learning Plan.
There were also some tips in the Facilitator’s Guide that focused on assessment of learning and the behavior of the Facilitator as well, such as what that person would be doing while the learners are engaged in an inquiry-based activity.
View the Guide!
The final deliverable was created, implementing feedback and following the guidance of the Learning Plan. This simplified the process and had everything needed to facilitate the session in one place. Each subsequent session would have a guide just like this, but the content would be different for each session. Click the link below to download the PDF of the Facilitator’s Guide for this session.
Features
Aligned to Organizational Goals
This Facilitator Guide for the first session was designed to meet the goals for the organization by keeping the actions required of the learner grounded in its development. Each session will build on the skills required for the learner to perform the actions in the action map above, therefore reaching the organizational goal.
Inquiry-Based
The sessions are intended to be inquiry-based, focusing on analyzing sales data and making inquiries as to what caused the success or lack of success for different companies. In subsequent sessions, learners will take a deep dive into science-based selling and analyze interactions based on their learning in terms of why sales interactions worked or didn’t work.
Collaborative
Instead of this being an independent learning experience, opportunities for discussion and collaboration are built into this session and facilitator guide. Learners can brainstorm ideas with each other, expand on talking points and interact with each other in future sessions to give feedback and practice developing their skills using the science-based sales techniques. Tips and suggestions are embedded into the Facilitator Guide to be able to accomplish this.
Realistic Activities
During the development process, we wanted these sessions to be applicable to the daily responsibilities of the learners instead of just facilitating an information dump. As a result, the session includes practice analyzing sales data and trends, reflecting on success in sales (how is success measured and what does it mean), and analyzing case studies that allow the learner to see an overview of how these strategies can help THEM be successful and drive more revenue. Future sessions will allow realistic practice with roleplay, scripting, and developing flowcharts based on the techniques introduced. The learner would then be able to use these resources in their own daily work.
Skill-Based
It’s important to be able to teach skills as part of any instructional program. While the learners are immersed in science-based sales techniques, they can also develop other skills that are important for their career field, such as analytical and data analysis skills. This session seeks to do that by the way of interpreting graphs and data, and analyzing cause and effect relationships between behaviors and sales revenue, as well as reflecting on their own behaviors.
Project Reflection
When the project was finished, I shared it with some of my network, as well as some professionals in the sales field, and they truly appreciated the hands-on inquiry-based aspect of this session. The depth of the Facilitator Guide was something they normally don’t see, and individuals in management roles stated that they would be confident in their ability to facilitate the sessions themselves with all of the guidance presented in the document.
While this project was intended to be a concept project, I can see myself improving on this in the future with increased activities like the one below:
Increased Immersion: As I do my best to design engaging projects, I’d like to incorporate some independent work into this between sessions. One possible idea would be eLearning simulations, including branching scenario situations developed using Storyline. This would give the learners practice responding to a variety of different situations in sales calls, allowing them to experience success and provide feedback when they make an incorrect choice, with appropriate consequences such as not closing the sale, damaging client relations, etc.
As with every project I have been a part of, I have grown as an instructional designer through the development of this project, taking me deeper into analyzing the needs of learners and applying adult learning frameworks to accomplish organizational goals. On my end, this concept project sharpened my research, collaboration, and design skills with professionals in different fields, and I enjoyed the process from start to finish because it allowed me to develop people’s abilities and help them be successful.