How to Keep SKO Momentum Going!
SKO was a success! After a tremendous effort from Sales Enablement, Sales Operations, front-line Sales Managers and Sales Leadership, you have successfully executed your FY18 kickoff and can give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done. You set expectations and priorities for the year, rolled out a new sales initiative, and trained on critical sales skills. Your team left motivated to execute on the year’s initiatives, and you feel good that the week will have a tremendous impact on the year's success.
Now you ask yourself, “How do we keep that momentum and focus all year long?”
It’s easy for everyone to get excited and pumped up during SKO, and now you can’t wait to see your organization reap the rewards of the efforts the whole team put into SKO. But your job is not done yet, and arguably, it is just beginning. Now that SKO is behind you and the foundations have been set, it is crucial that you put programs and measures into place to ensure the expectations are met, the sales initiatives are successful, and the training is retained and utilized.
So how do you ensure that all the content you covered during SKO gets implemented?
Reinforce! Reinforce! Reinforce!
Studies show that 87% of training can be lost within 90 days if there is no reinforcement in place. Your sales teams need continuous support to keep the training content top of mind and accessible. If the training content is not readily available and reinforced regularly, it will not be adopted and it certainly won’t become the habitual behavior you had hoped to see moving out of SKO.
Five critical steps to reinforcement:
Make all SKO presentation and follow-up materials available as soon as possible post-event. Reps should be able to quickly access the materials to leverage the content as a just-in-time guide or a refresher when working with customers or executing a process.
Incorporate all SKO training and information into the Sales On-boarding program. This will ensure that new reps are up to speed on the content and expectations and are trained accordingly.
Conduct a post-SKO knowledge assessment to gauge the comprehension of the new material. Use that data as a starting point for ongoing reinforcement throughout the year. Send out the same knowledge assessment every quarter to track progress and plan on providing continuous support based on knowledge assessment results.
Design micro-learning paths to reinforce the content in a consistent drip fashion throughout the year. Release the micro-learning modules in a systematic cadence that makes sense for your business throughout the year. This method ensures that the team gets a quick review on small elements of what was trained, while countering the forgetting curve. You can leverage online learning tools, or design live, instructor-led training to deliver the sessions.
Support and engage the front-line sales managers to carry forward crucial learnings and concepts. This can be accomplished by providing reinforcement and sales enablement resources for the micro-learning modules that the sales leaders can leverage during bi-weekly or monthly sales team meetings.
Taking these steps to reinforce what was covered during SKO will make all of the efforts you poured into one week of the year, last the entire year.
Roz Greenfield, Co-Founder & Chief Enablement Officer at Level213