Sales academies aim to deliver measurable and sustainable change and ROI through improving sales skills. To be successful, a sales academy needs to focus on developing both salespeople and managers through objective measurement, coaching, and changing behaviors rather than just processes. It also requires buy-in from salespeople by winning their hearts and minds to change behaviors long-term rather than just providing short-term training.

1. Excellence doesn’t happen by chance
Sales Academy White Paper
How to create successful Sales Academies that deliver measurable
and sustainable change and massive ROI

2. Pre-meeting Behaviour Listening Presenting Selling
Improving the small things can make the
di erence between winning and losing or
success and failure - in sport and business

3. What is a Sales Academy? Why install a Sales Academy? ) Managers are not involved in the training
of their staff and therefore can’t ensure the
A Sales Academy can be an organisation’s goal Do you face some of the following risks in your training sticks
or mission, an aspiration for a people-centric organisation? ) No sales management training - this is
culture, an organisation’s vision even. As a needed more than the frontline as the
function it is an internal infrastructure that ) Different departments buying training on majority of sales managers are the best
measures, supports, develops and sustains their own with no co-ordination with other performers made manager
the development of each function in the sales areas of the business and no business plan ) Managers are not good coaches and lack of
force. It ensures the best talent is attracted
to ensure ROI coaching culture
to and employed by the organisation and
then develops them as sales professionals to ) Training development plans having no ) No sales training at all but the sales targets
become the best they can be in their current direct linkage to support organisational are increasing year on year
role, supporting and guiding them through stategy
) A board that is demanding growth without
their sales careers within the organisation.
) Different suppliers selling similar courses any investment in the sales force
In short, it should drive and manage the
employee lifecycle ) Different courses using different language ) Focus on revenue or other numbers to
) No common language from the top to assess capability
The infrastructure needs to contain project bottom of the sales force ) Recruitment handled by your sales
management, design, objective measurement,
) The company is buying stand alone courses managers
L&D incorporating talent development
initiatives, mentors, coaches, trainers and rather than a properly specified and defined ) Lots of data about the sales force that is not
training managers, sales professionals and most solution for sales development being used and makes no difference
importantly board level sponsorship. ) Sales people not getting the training they ) A lack of succession planning or career path
actually need – just what the company for the sales staff
thinks they need resulting in resentment ) Losing talent to competitors
and lack of willingness to change
) One course for all different types of sales If you can relate to some of these risks in
roles your organisation then you should start to
think about a new more structured approach
) No measurement of skills or only subjective to developing the revenue engine of your
measurement by the sales managers company.
Call Centres
Recruitment
Telephone Retail Trainer Skills
(New Employees)
Skills B2B & B2C
Field Sales Talent &
B2B & B2C
Employee Life Cycle Development
(Existing Employees)
Management Leadership
Customer Licence
Skills Executive Skills
Services Accreditation
Development Development

4. Why have so many not succeeded in increasing revenues and profit?
In the 1970’s and 1980’s people were trained for people they like and who are like themselves. In the right development or recruitment of their
6 months before they were permitted to go out this way they take on sales people for £30,000, sales teams so revenues for many collapsed.
to sell and there were regular refresher courses £40,000, £50,000 base salary and expect them
lasting up to 4-6 weeks. A stark contrast to a to be able to sell based on what the candidate The research study Silent Edge conducted
sales person in today’s fast paced world who is has told the company they have achieved in with Cranfield in late 2008 and 2009 showed
lucky to receive 2 days of training. the past and how well they get on with the that only 12 % of new business people, 4% of
recruiting manager. account managers and 2% of telesales people
Companies recruit sales people based on their have the necessary skills to do their jobs
apparent success and experience as indicated Economies had 12 years of boom and growth properly. “Sales Force UK” is not good at selling.
on their CV, or they use non sales focused until the middle of 2008. Companies had no
measures. There are no standard consistent real pain so they had no need to invest in their Now budgets are squeezed at a time when
qualifications for the sales industry so their sales forces - the orders kept coming in. At the companies need to invest in their sales forces.
CV is their “qualification” but they are never same time the number of professional sales Buying a two day training course is not going to
tested on actually being able to deliver tangible people in the UK expanded very rapidly – there cut the mustard. You’re out of your mind if you
and sustainable results before they join the are now 1 million sales people in the UK – and think it will change the skill set and behaviour
new organisation. On top of this many of the they became very good at taking orders. of anyone.
recruiters used to assess and interview the
candidates have never been trained how to In middle of 2008 the order taking stopped Companies are starting to realise they need to
recruit and use gut instinct and cultural fit and companies started to realise that they had do something completely different as the world
(rapport building skills) of the candidate as the to compete and that their sales forces had to has changed and the old methods don’t work
strongest measure of success – they recruit the start selling. However, they had not invested in in these different times.

5. Subjectivity versus objectivity
If you had Googled “competency frameworks” Put simply, subjective opinion provides same DVD at the same time.
in 2002 (the birth of Silent Edge) then you inaccurate data and if you base development
would have got 7 hits – none to do with sales. and HR decisions on inaccurate data you get The measurement of competencies has to
In 2007 about 20% of blue chip companies negative results. There are countless companies be objective to end up with accurate data on
were looking at measuring their sales teams and sales academies where, after considerable which companies can base sound decisions
using competency frameworks as well as investment, there has been little or no such as the ones in the diagram below.
numbers. Now in 2010 that figure is more like sustainable change in the behaviour of the
70% and many have implemented them. sales force or sales management. The only way you can create objectivity is to
define best practice and “what good looks like”
However the common mistake that has In 2006 we asked 61 experienced sales trainers for every role you need to measure.
been made is the application and detail of from a leading UK insurance company (who
competency frameworks. They all revolve also went out and scored the sales staff for At Silent Edge we have over 200 scorecards to
around the manger subjectively assessing their compliance) to score a 15 minute DVD of a poor choose from covering every type of pre sales,
staff in their opinion and the sales person self sales pitch. They were given 25 competencies sales, account manager, telesales, call centre
assessing and then comparing the results. to score against and had to score each one and sales management/leadership role in
from 1 -10 (ten being excellent). the world. Most are also tailored to different
Every manager has their likes and dislikes. One industries as well. They are all available in 7
manager may have high standards and another The scores of all 61 ranged from 16% to 64% - a European languages.
low, so there is no common benchmark to score 4 fold difference and yet they all watched the
from.

6. No focus on managers Coaching without objective
data “Silent Edge were brought in to
Your sales managers are the pillars of your sales BT Directories put out to tender a project to help transform the performance of
organisation. 83% got there because they were turn their 60 sales managers into world class
our sales force. In less than a year,
good at selling, not because they were good coaches. We pointed out that although there
managers. Only 6% have had professional sales are many good courses that they could send and despite the adverse economic
management skills training. their managers on, when they returned to conditions, the programme has
the office as great coaches, what would they delivered the strongest increase
Many companies focus on training the front actually coach their sales staff on?
in productivity and effectiveness
line sales staff and neglect the managers
assuming they should know how to run the Without a clear competency framework the resulting in a 11% improvement
sales force. Often the managers do not attend managers would simply coach the sales staff in in revenues. They were able to get
the sales courses their own sales staff attend. their own way of selling and would therefore sponsorship at the top and at all
So they do not understand the new language cascade bad practice brilliantly throughout
levels throughout the sales force
or techniques their teams return with and their organisation.
cannot support them. increasing motivation, morale,
It is essential that a manager can combine belief and confidence. Their
If you have not focused on creating a coaching coaching skills with objective data on the implementation was flawless under
culture with your managers and given them competencies of their sales people
tight timelines and pressure from
development and skills to be excellent sales
managers then your sales academy will fail. Fortunately BT Directories followed our advice our business. Consequently we have
and as a result had an increase in sales of 11% happily renewed our contract for
in the worst recessionary year we have seen for the forthcoming year with a view
decades.
to sustaining and embedding the
massive change we have already
created with the Silent Edge Sales
Academy”
David Benjamin (CEO)
BT Directories

7. Dependence on training not What should be the objective for a Sales Academy?
coaching
Too many Sales Academies depend on training ) Increasing revenue growth ) Creating strong sales management and
the sales staff to improve their skills without leadership
) Delivering Return On Investment
looking to improve the sales management and ) Creating a coaching culture
coaching skills (two different things) of the ) Delivering training exactly where it is
entire sales management team – that includes needed ensuring the budget is spent ) Provide a happy and rewarding
the managers of managers and Sales Director. precisely and accurately - training needs environment to work in
analysis
) Improve motivation, morale, belief and
If the managers have world class coaching ) Keeping the skills of the team in confidence
skills then they will become the team that will development mode – different levels
sustain and ensure that the sales people are ) Have customers recommend and praise
means striving to get to the next stage
using the new skills they have been taught. the sales force/company to their peers
Without this the new skills will dissipate very ) Motivating sales people to learn and and colleagues
quickly and a few weeks later the sales staff will develop
) Have an internalised sustainable and
revert to their normal habits. ) Reduce unwanted churn of sales people scalable solution
Developing a coaching culture is fundamental ) Providing a clear career path for sales ) Link sales professionals skills
to the success of an academy. Your sales and sales management roles improvement to incentives and the HR
managers become the pillars of your academy process
) Being able to measure talent and prove
and the platform for growth. ROI on training
All of the above is achievable with a properly
) Career progression run Sales Academy. Yet even now most base
their decisions and development on subjective
) Succession planning data and simply incubate and propagate
existing sales manager inefficiencies where the
) Managing out non-performers that do
root cause of the problem lies.
not improve their skills
1 day
Motivating Business Results
Goal Mapping
2 days 1 day
Evaluation Feedback Best Practice and Skills Tailored Developing Dynamic
Development Workshops Proposition Workshop
Planning for Success - Driving Business Results
3 Days Critical Elements of Sales
Sustainability Sustainability Sustainability
Management
Learning Learning Learning
Set 1 Set 2 Set 3

8. The Critical Hour
Here is a sobering thought;
we can tell if someone can
actually sell in an hour!
This is the hour that they spend with a
prospective customer, an hour where the
decision about whether your company
has any chance of doing business with the
prospect is decided. Although few potential
customers decide to buy on a first meeting,
most will decide not to buy.
This is why Silent Edge-trained sales force
observers, either from within your company
or provided by us, insist on attending at least
two live sales calls in the case of field sales
people, and listening in to multiple calls in the
case of telesales people.
“Silent Edge had a highly beneficial
impact on the team in both tangible
sales results and a change in behaviour
to sell complete solutions. £2.5m of new
business has been directly attributed to
the skills acquired from the programme.
This has occurred in a time of considerable
change in the organisation and in a
highly challenging economic climate and
marketplace.”
Dave Everest (SALES DIRECTOR)
Calyx
Critical Hour™
Actual Ability vs Perception
Competency Averages

9. Don’t change people and processes, change behaviour
If your aim is to develop your and failure. The slightest change in team or Our aim is to take your sales force on a journey
individual behaviour can have a massive impact of self discovery. The journey is designed to
sales force, you need to win – positively as well as negatively. Changing support both the individual’s change on a
their hearts and minds. behaviour is the key to changing performance. personal level and the teams’ ability to grow
through shared learning initiatives. At the end
Otherwise, they won’t change their behaviour, Having given the team and individual detailed of this programme journey the Performance
they won’t buy into the development feedback on their assessments we help Coach will work with you to identify 3 things
programme and just days after training them through the process of changing their that will be done differently within your
has ended they will revert to their previous behaviour through detailed action plans, business as a result of the Programme. Those 3
behaviour. Silent Edge works on the principle workshops and coaching. This starts with us things will be integrated into activities within
that you cannot effect changes in performance guiding them through the “Change Curve” to your business to ensure sustained success.
by simply changing the process – you have to a point where they accept their ability as it is
change the team’s behaviour. right now. If a sales person does not accept
the need to change, then they won’t and any
Have you ever wondered why highly paid training given thereafter will be a waste of time
and highly rated sports teams can suddenly and money.
perform so badly? One of the biggest reasons
for this is that most teams operate on a
delicate knife edge between peak performance
“I have used every training course
and well known brand in my career
but I have never seen anything like
Getting to Silent Edge. They transformed my
sales force taking their revenues from
Acceptance as £750k a month to £4m a month in 6
quickly as possible months. More remarkably the other
is of paramount 6 regions in CW did not increase their
revenues during this time.”
importance!
Mike Siddon (REGIONAL MD)
Cable & Wireless
The Change Curve

10. Sales Force Development Journey
5 Development
6 Coaching
4 Create goals
7 Memory jogger
3 Plan to change
2 Feedback
1 Evaluation

11. 1 Evaluation
Think of this as a fitness test. Using data recorded from observations of live sales calls and meetings we are able to assess
objectively the performance of each sales person in the team. The impact of these results provides strong motivation for
changes in behaviour and subsequent improvement in performance.
2 Feedback
Delivered by sales management and Silent Edge experts, this process enables individuals to start accepting the need to
change sales behaviour. The feedback section, and how it is delivered, is a crucial part of the Sales Force Evaluation journey.
3 Plan to change
Armed with the objective evaluation results, with our help, the sales person can now create a personal development plan.
Here, they learn how to apply the tools which will help them to achieve their goals.
4 Create goals
This is the process known as Goal Mapping. Using tried and tested techniques, incorporating words, images and symbols
we show the sales person how to visualise their future success.
5 Development
Here we build skills workshops to provide targeted, accelerated development activities for specific roles. This is all about
avoiding “sheep dip” training programmes and instead creating an intense climate of purpose and change.
6 Coaching
The best sports people in the world would never have achieved their goals without their coaches. The same is true in
the business world and the Sales Force Evaluation journey raises expectations all round. Effective coaching ensures that
expectations and improved performances are sustainable.
7 Memory jogger
This 3 – 4 minute video of the key learning points can be sent to the mobile devices of your sales team. The sales person
can download them as an aide memoir before they start an important meeting.

12. About Silent Edge
They say necessity is the mother of invention pair built a team of sales professionals and
and in the case of Silent Edge this could not skills development specialists to research,
be more true. Russell Ward and Lorna Dakers develop and test a new approach to measuring
were both highly successful and experienced sales force performance in real live sales “Silent Edge’s unique end-to-
international Sales Directors when they situations. The research clearly identified the end solution motivates sales
concluded that the sales training industry skills and behaviour demonstrated by the people to improve performance
was failing to do its job properly. They were most successful sales people. So Silent Edge and alters their behaviour to
frustrated by what they call the “sheep dip” developed the “Sales Force Evaluation”™ tool to sell real solutions. Our profit
approach to training – everyone goes in one measure sales skills, knowledge and behaviour
increased 13% from £45m to
end, gets saturated and then comes out the and to bench mark them against best practice
£51m in a market that was
other end, taking no account of the fact that not only in the UK but across Europe and in
sales teams are made up of individuals with local language. trading backwards.Our growth
different abilities and levels of sales skill. rate currently stands at 10%
This approach is one which sets Silent Edge compared to the rest of the
They spent substantial sums with well known apart from all other competitors. The tools marketplace whose growth rate
training providers only to find that after a and methodologies behind the evaluation is only 2%. We can attribute this
couple of months nothing had really changed. process have won awards and have captured
growth to the work undertaken
Their teams reverted to ‘business as normal’ and the interest and active support of two leading
by Silent Edge.”
the training budgets had been wasted. business schools, Ashridge Business School and
Cranfield University School of Management. Andy Kemp (GROUP SALES DIRECTOR)
So Silent Edge was born. From the start the Silent Edge methodologies are also used as the 3663
business was passionate about creating sales measurement standard to find the country’s
training programmes that were based on best performers in the UK Sales Industry
objective assessment rather than opinion. The Awards, National Sales Awards and BESMA.

13. Some of our clients:

14. Working with Cranfield University School of Management
There are not many sales performance working with our data for over two years now
“The competencies Silent Edge have consultancies that would even consider that and, with them, we have produced some
defined to benchmark sales people their work was worthy of accreditation by ground breaking findings. Included in this is the
really help drive sales performance. one of Europe’s leading business schools - let revelation that there are 8 types of sales people
The model can also predict how likely
alone expect to be directly approached on the and you will be able to identify what type of
strength of reputation. Silent Edge is now a people you have in your company in terms of
a sales person is to close a deal.”
valued research partner to CUSM. skills, levels and roles. Once armed with this
powerful information you will be in the perfect
Professor Lynette Ryals Our relationship with Cranfield is one that place to help them develop and improve their
Cranfield University School of we are justifiably proud of. They have been performance…significantly.
Management
Sales Success
Product Service
Experts
Closing
Product Closers Story Tellers Consultants
Product Focused
Closing to next stage
Narrators
Deal Makers
Next steps
Socialisers

15. “I am sitting in a position I never “Silent Edge transformed my “The programme is the best I have
dreamed I would be in 12 months sales force, taking them from been on by the way, way better
ago all thanks to Silent Edge. We £750k a month to £4m a month than Vodafone and better than
have increased revenues by 50% in six months … In six weeks we companies like Unilever, Coca Cola
overall and the minimum product achieved what could normally take Enterprises and Whitbread, all of
line had 40% growth in a market four months. The precision of which I was a first line manager”.
that has had modest single digit the evaluation data enabled us to
John Hough
growth at best. Our margins have make immediate decisions on the
(BUSINESS MANAGER)
improved, the competition are development plan for each of our
Orange
shocked and hurting, the team are salespeople. ”
highly motivated and are far more
Mike Siddon
professional in their approach. We
(REGIONAL MD)
are now working with Silent Edge
Cable & Wireless
on phase two of their development
programme.”
John O’Brien
(MANAGING DIRECTOR)
Sematron UK
“It has picked up some areas that “I have been to numerous “I would sum up my experience
unless I had seen the Silent Edge workshops, seminars, courses etc with Silent Edge as being like
report I would have carried on over the last 10 years and this was strawberries and cream at
making the same mistakes for the without doubt the best course I Wimbledon on a summer’s day, you
rest of my career. I have been have been on…truly inspiring! I am don’t realise just how good it is till
selling for 30 years so you can looking forward to putting what I you have it. Thank you.”
teach an old dog new tricks!” have learnt into practice”.
Glyn Blaize
Liam Casserly Anthony Keen Adrem
(DEVELOPMENT UNDERWRITER) (BRANCH TRAINER)
Ecclesiastical Insurance Group BT Customer Street

16. Silent Edge Ltd
Union House
Eridge Road
Tunbridge Wells
England
TN4 8HF
Tel: +44(0)1892 502200
www.silentedge.co.uk