The Tenth Commandment:
Continually Learn and Grow

Making personal development part of the company culture
by James “Alex” Alexander, Ed.D.

For top performing organizations and top performing services sellers, continually learning and growing is not a nice-to-have, but a mandatory requirement for success. Read to learn about the responsibilities of leadership, services sales managers and individual services sellers to see how they should approach to learning and growing.

Leadership responsibilities

“…the rate at which individuals and organizations learn may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”
– Ray Stata, CEO, Analog Devices

This statement is valid for most businesses, but it is a cornerstone of the knowledge-based organization, and a top priority for the sellers of the invisible. Unique knowledge and skills are the differentiators in highly competitive industries where skeptical customers often view products and services as commodities. In that sense, developing the knowledge and skills of employees is mission critical. Yet, for something so important, there is a very common lack of commitment, a type of sin …

Leadership sin: SAYING people are our most important asset. But … ACTING as if your people are commodities.

Do you know any organizations that don’t say people are their most important asset? Still, how many actually act like it, especially when times get a little tough? One of the very first things cut is almost always the training budget.

However, some organizations take this platitude to heart. Let’s take a big-picture look at how the leadership of top performing organizations view the world and where learning and development fit in.

Figure 1 shows that the leadership of top performing organizations is concerned about just two things: strategy and culture. Under strategy, note the success factors of getting the right business focus, aligning the organization around that focus, gaining a competitive position and deploying the appropriated resources in the correct manner. All important.

On the culture side, my academic research confirms that the best organization leaders emphasize healthy cultures.

The healthiest cultures have four complementary factors:

1. Contribution. The requirement of individual contribution by all employees.
2. Community. Sense of community that pervades the organization.
3. Candor. Required candor when discussing all issues.
4. Continuous learning. The ongoing need for continuous learning that requires being flexible and adaptable to change.

If you analyze organizations that have performed well over time, you will see most or all of these factors embedded into how they think and act. Yes, culture is a big deal, and the senior leaders create this organizational personality.

Here are three best practices of high-performing leaders when it comes to continuing to learn and grow:

1. Build talent management and organizational learning objectives into the business plan. If you believe it is important, it needs to be in the big plan complete with objectives, ownership and financial commitment.
2. Reward all managers (including executives) for getting, growing and keeping star performers. The best way to focus attention is to reward the behaviors you want.
3. Allocate five percent of your gross revenue to continuing education. In the services business, your most valuable asset is your talent and mind share. Invest in it! Enough said.

Services sales management responsibilities

Often thought and sometimes stated, “Cripes, what if I take my people out of the field and spend money to train them, and then half of them leave?”

Appropriate response: “What if you don’t train them and they all stay?”

I’ve heard this too many times: “We are having our yearly global sales meeting the week of XXX and I’d like to do some training on selling services
– how much time would you need?” If you want to change behaviors and get them to sell better, then I recommend a two-day session. They often reply, “Huh! I already have four and a half days committed for sure. What can you do in two hours?”

If I bother to ask about the agenda, it often includes at least one full day devoted to administrative (e.g., completing the new expense forms correctly), HR issues (e.g., importance of politeness in the company) and a motivational speaker (e.g., wishing your way to success). Clearly, training and development takes last place in a week of improving sales effectiveness. Sad, isn’t it?

Services sales management sin: Not treating your people as a long-term investment.

Top performing services sales managers understand that to drive new performance they need to think about development as a learning system.

Figure 2 outlines the required components:

Desired outcome. Starting with the end in mind, the desired outcome is repeatable, sustainable performance in an always-changing selling environment.

Capabilities. To accomplish the desired outcome, services sellers need new mindsets, knowledge and skills to adapt to constant change and new complexities. I recommend creating job models that clearly outline expectations.

Quality training. Regular, ongoing services-specific training tailored to your services sellers is required to sharpen existing skills and add new ones as required. I recommend at least 10 days of training per year.

Performance system. Make sure that a personal development plan is in place and that management requires successful completion for meaningful bonuses. I recommend 10 percent of compensation be dependent on the personal development plan.

Knowledge management system. Make it as easy as possible for your services sellers to access account histories, best practices, case studies, industry white papers, online communication or business courses, and so on.

Reinforce and monitor. Hold regular discussions with your sellers regarding their personal development plan and hold them to putting it in action. Once a month works well.

Provide ongoing coaching. Get out of the office and ride with your sellers. Actively watch and listen to their customer performance, then give them feedback on their performance with appropriate feedback. In the best sales organizations, sales management spends at least three days a week in the field coaching.

Walk the talk. Drink your own Kool-Aid. Develop your own personal development plan and not only share it with senior management, but also share it with your people.

Here are six best practices of high-performing services sales managers when it comes to continuing to learn and grow:

1. Require robust personal development of all services sellers with a bonus upon accomplishment.
2. Expect that all personnel involved in selling spend a minimum of two weeks per year in some type of intensive education.
3. Make learning opportunities easy by using a variety of approaches, such as on-site workshops, simulations, online training and public seminars.
4. Formalize coaching as a sales management requirement.
5. Ask all top performers to mentor new salespeople.
6. Create a knowledge management database of best practices, case studies and articles.

Services seller responsibilities

If you are green, you are growing — if you are ripe, you rot.

The lesson of this old adage is that you never stay in the same place. If you don’t move ahead, you fall back.

If you are in an organization where both executives and managers “get it” when it comes to learning, your responsibilities are simple
– just plug your personal preference into your personal development plan and make it so.

However, there is a good chance that you are in an organization with only moderate support or no support when it comes to personal development.

Services seller sin. Not taking personal ownership of your future.

Don’t let this lack of support be a cop-out. Take personal ownership of your future
– build your own plan and move forward.

Start by giving an honest response to where you are now on this services sales continuum. Next, think where you’d like to be in the near and far future. It could be that you stay in services sales, target becoming a business consultant, or work toward to become a trusted advisor. Explore the knowledge and skills you need to have in order to add to your capabilities and put them in your plan. The good news is that there are multiple sources of good learning for little or no cost.

Here are the two best practices of high-performing services sellers when it comes to continuing to learn and grow:

• Assume total ownership of personal development.
• Commit a minimum of 30 minutes per day, five days a week toward personal development.

Learning and growing are absolute requirements. Follow these two simple practices to achieve your personal selling success.

Good selling!

This is the tenth article in a 10-part series on the 10 commandments of selling services. Visit the link to read previous articles and listen to webinars.

About James “Alex” Alexander

Alexander is founder of Alexander Consulting, a management consultancy that helps companies create and implement professional services strategies for product companies. Contact him at 239-671-0740, alex@alexanderstrategists.com or visit
www.alexanderstrategists.com.

© Alexander Consulting