Pharmaceutical Representative, April 1st, 2007
Diagnosis
A well-designed training program doesn't guarantee everyone is on the same page.
Prescription
Clearly translate goals into objectives for success all around.
Have you ever been asked to design a training program to meet a sales goal only to get more push back than buy-in when you presented your plans? Turning sales goals into learning objectives is a critical part of the sales trainer's job. While this conversion may seem natural, even the most well-designed training program can spawn endless meetings, heated discussions and lots of head scratching.
When sales leadership told Jennifer that they were losing market share, she listened carefully. Then she performed a needs assessment and outlined a program summary that included specific learning objectives. Her needs assessment revealed a training gap that was largely impacting market share. The sales professionals were having trouble selling against the competition. She determined that they knew the evidence in the competitive product package inserts, but did not know how to highlight specific sections of the PIs to compare features and benefits of their products with the competition. Her program on comparative selling included these learning objectives:
- Explain the purpose and impact of comparative selling.
- Compare features and benefits with the competition, as seen in the PI.
- Buffer, search, answer and confirm physician objections to the PI.
When Jennifer shared her plans with sales leadership, she expected quick approval. Her research had turned up the training gap, she knew how to fill it and the result would be increased market share. She was surprised when the meeting went longer than expected and ended without the green light to proceed or even the consensus she needed to change direction. What seemed like the answer to lost market share was now a slide deck that might never make it into a training room.
Jennifer was understandably frustrated and unclear on what to do next. Was she wrong about the objectives? Was sales leadership wrong? What should she do to ensure that the sales professionals received the training they needed to impact market share? There was a meeting scheduled in three days to determine the next steps, and Jennifer was determined that they would include constructive input from sales leadership, as well as approval of her program.
Jennifer's challenges are global to pharmaceutical sales trainers. Sales leadership has a goal, and sales trainers provide the learning objectives to meet that goal. But what was once so clear to everyone involved can sometimes turn into something that makes no one happy. While the push and pull between sales training and sales leadership may be ubiquitous, it is almost always unnecessary. The disconnect between the two groups is often a simple matter of semantics.
When trainers translate sales goals into learning objectives, they often lose buy-in from sales leadership. That may seem strange given both groups have the same goal, but here is what happens: Sales leaders don't recognize their goals after they've been converted to learning objectives. You might hear them say, "We don't use learning objectives here." But you know that effective training programs need solid learning objectives. The learning objectives spell out the skills required to achieve sales goals. They are the foundation of the training program around which you design the content and activities. How can you possibly design training that does not include learning objectives? Well, you can't. But what you can do is translate the learning objectives into words that resonate with sales leadership.
The language of sales leaders tends to revolve around the business of selling – numbers, volume and market share that can be represented on a spreadsheet. They use phrases like confidence, impact, strategies, agenda, purpose, know the science and understand the competition. You can tell whether or not sales goals have been met by looking at numbers and examining market data.
Sometimes their goals do not specifically mention market share, but instead focus on a broad area of concern that they believe limits market share. For example, you may hear these common goals:
- Sales professionals need to get the physicians to open up and have meaningful dialogues.
- Sales professionals need to understand the science.
- Sales professionals need to use their resources.
Sales leaders clearly envision what they need sales reps to do to move market share. It is your job to drill down and figure out the specific skills the sales representatives need to reach the goals. Sometimes the answers are not as obvious as initially thought. If you don't see sales representatives using their studies, you might assume they need to understand the science better. However, the problem may be that they don't believe in the studies, or they may believe the competition has better information. Careful needs assessment will allow you to use sales goals to figure out the precise training gap.
As a trainer, you take broad goals such as "move market share" or "understand the science better" and convert them into performance-based actions. Your language should revolve around personals skills – words such as: describe, outline, list and compare. You can tell whether or not your training objectives have been met by observing sales professionals demonstrate the skills. Think of the sales goals as the reasons why you select a destination, and the learning objectives as the road map. Sales leaders know where they want to end up, and it's your job to get them there. They will reach their goals via the learning objectives.
Learning objectives are the skills sales professionals will be able to incorporate as a result of the training. They are phrased as observable, behavior-based actions. Trainers know that a good learning objective is an action that can be observed and measured. Unfortunately, the language that is typically used to describe learning objectives can often sound detached to sales leaders. And, the objectives may not appear relevant to their goals. What we want is to compare the features and benefits of our product with the competition.
For the same reasons we train sales professionals to speak to physicians in their own language, we create more buy-in for our training by speaking to sales leaders in their language. We do this by removing the "training" words and restating the learning objectives as the program purpose. Let's go back to Jennifer and her program on comparative selling. She was told the sales goal was increased market share. She developed applicable learning objectives to meet that goal, including one that read, "Sales professionals will demonstrate feature comparisons with benefit applications versus the competition." Sales leaders did not see how her objectives met their goal. Had she translated her learning objectives into a program purpose, it may have been clearer. Of course, some sales leaders have training experience and will more easily understand learning objectives. But most sales leaders will find it helpful if you learn to speak their language.
The difference between a learning objective and a program purpose may seem slight to you, but it can make a big difference when it comes to creating the buy-in that you will need from sales leadership to ensure the success of your program. While learning objectives are observable actions that each person will be able to perform as a result of the training, the program purpose explains why you are conducting training. A program purpose may be, "Sales professionals are challenged with new science and need to leverage their studies against the competition." When drafting the program purpose, ask yourself what has happened to make this program necessary? The answer will be your program purpose. Then your job will be to determine the actions necessary to achieve it. These are your learning objectives.
When Jennifer attended the follow-up meeting to sort out her comparative selling program, she temporarily erased the learning objectives from her program summary (she will use them for the program specifics later). Instead, she wrote the following program purpose: "As a result of this training, sales representatives will move market share using comparative selling." Her training got the green light – and impacted market share as a result.
