Shankar Ganapathy, Author at Mindtickle

5 Reasons Why Companies Should Care About the Pre-Join Period

Shankar Ganapathy on October 24, 2016

It is estimated that 46 percent of newly hired employees fail within 18 months. Although it may seem like all of the territories in new hire onboarding has been fully explored and mapped out, the pre-join period is still uncharted territory that human resources professionals may be overlooking.

According to a recent Aberdeen report, Engaging Your New Hires on Day 1, the onboarding experience is typically black or white for your new hire. Either it is positive or it is negative. When onboarding goes well, your new hire is energized, motivated, and eager to go forth and perform.

On the regrettable flipside, with a negative experience, they may feel resentful and start to question their decision to join the organization.

You don’t want that to happen. This is where having a strong pre-join plan for your new hires can come in handy. A strong pre-join experience addresses the earliest stage of engagement with your new employee when they are forming an initial opinion about your organization.

“Investing in the pre-join experience is a great opportunity to invest in your new hires.” Todd Raphael, Chief editor, ere.net

What is the “pre-join” period?

“Pre-join” refers to the period between the day a new employee accepts an offer to the day he or she shows up at the office for the first day of work. This period could be anywhere from 2-4 weeks to 6-9 months, in the case of campus hires where job offers are extended while the student is still in school. The same Aberdeen report shows that 37% of companies extend their programs beyond the first month. For these companies, “onboarding is regressing rather than advancing.”

Why should your organization implement a pre-join program?

The pre-join period represents a huge missed opportunity for most organizations, as they fail to recognize the value that an organized pre-join program can offer in terms of employee recruitment, retention, and productivity. Read on as we break down the top reasons for implementing a pre-join program for training and engaging new hires.

1. Pre-join programs reduce employee dropout rate

There’s a lot that can happen between the day that a prospective employee accepts an offer and their first day on the job. In particular, when there are several weeks or months leading up to their start date, people can receive other job offers or simply change their minds about joining your company.

An organized pre-join program can help mitigate these risks by making new hires feel like they are already part of your organization. By having their training program start before their official start date, employees are more likely to feel a bond with your organization, empowered by the fact that they’re going to be starting day 1 with weeks (or even months) of training experience under their belt.

In one impressive example, a $5 billion dollar IT company reduced pre-join churn by about 90% using Mindtickle’s gamified learning platform.

2. Pre-join programs aid in successful employee placement

You can learn a lot about a new hire’s interests, strengths, and weaknesses through their performance in pre-join programs. This information can then be used in identifying areas of improvement to be addressed, as well as determining optimal employee placement in your organization.

For example, new hires that do well on modules pertaining to soft skills could be put in customer-facing roles, while those that excel in technical skills could be placed on technology projects.

3. Pre-join programs improve employee engagement beyond day 1

A successful pre-join program helps to validate a new recruit’s decision to join your company. This does more than prevent them from going to a competitor or dropping your offer before joining but extends its value beyond day 1 and well into their tenure.

In the words of Naveen Narayanan, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at HCL Technologies, “Pre-employment engagement plays a significant part in bringing down the renege scores and enable the new joiners to get a 360 view of the company. Prospective employees feel valued and this gives the candidates the impetus and drive to excel post joining.”

4. Pre-join programs reduce the time it takes employees to become productive

There is a gap of time between an employee’s first day on the job and when they start being a productive member of the organization. According to Michael Watkins’ book “The First 90 Days”, the break-even point when a new hire starts being profitable is at 6.2 months from their start date.

This gap can be reduced by employing a pre-join program that brings new hires up to speed on technical skills and company values, allowing for a more seamless integration into their new role and the corporate culture. This allows for a quicker transformation of a new hire from an expense into an asset to your organization.

5. Pre-join programs can be a source of competitive advantage

An effective pre-join program can contribute to a company’s bottom line in a number of ways. From a cost savings standpoint, an organization benefits from lower drop-out and retention rates that mitigate the need for additional recruitment efforts.

A strong pre-join program also impacts a company’s profits, with employees being able to contribute business value faster – of particular impact when looking at training sales teams.

Employee Onboarding Experts on Building a Great Experience in New Hire Onboarding

Shankar Ganapathy on October 13, 2016

Effective onboarding is the cornerstone of human capital management. There’s no doubt that it sets the tone and in many cases can also set the trajectory for new hires joining your organization.

According to an Aberdeen Onboarding Benchmark report, “New employees often feel that the attention they receive during the pre-hire stages is abandoned once they are hired.” In Fortune 500 companies alone, about 500,000 managers take on new roles each year and, overall, managers begin new jobs every two to four years. Unfortunately, in the midst of all these transitions:

Half of all senior outside hires fail within 18 months in a new position
Half of all hourly workers leave new jobs within the first 120 days

Source: Aberdeen Group, The Onboarding Benchmark Report

What we want to avoid is new hires feeling that your organization is not meeting the expectations set by the hiring process. Fortunately, this challenge can be overcome with investment in a pre-join program. Pre-join is the time between the employee accepting the offer of employment and starting in your company on day one. For most companies, the pre-join investment includes checklists with tasks like ‘get your email set up, take a drug test, and register for your employee number’. If this doesn’t sound inspiring, that’s because it isn’t.

For more inspired ways to deliver an excellent pre-join new hire onboarding experience, we decided to speak with two experts: Mohit Garg, Co-Founder of Mindtickle and Todd Raphael, Chief Editor at ERE. Ere is the premier resource for the employment, HR, and recruiting world.

Read on for our conversation!

In your experience, can organizations benefit from engaging with new hires between the offer and the first day of work? How does this help the new hire?

Mohit Garg: Modern-day talent development is about keeping your employee at the center of the experience. It’s important to treat every new hire as a new customer that you are prospecting or pitching and, like a marketing campaign, invest in building the relationship through referral and retention. When you look through this lens, it is similar to onboarding a new customer. You want the experience to be high touch and ensure that expectations are met.

In many ways, your new hire is forming an opinion about your organization before the hiring process begins. Research from Aberdeen Group shows that employees make a decision to work with a company long-term within three months of joining an organization! They are asking, “Is this consistent with my expectations?” They are comparing your organization’s values to their worldview and value system.

The pre-join phase is an opportunity to engage your new hire with the value proposition of the business. You can show new employees what it means to work in your organization by starting your new hires off in an excited and positive state of mind. Focus on fostering a strong appetite to learn and get engaged. Having info on what to expect can reduce your new hire’s anxiety on day one.

Todd Raphael: I agree that investing in the pre-join experience is a great opportunity to invest in your new hires. However, it’s important to really consider your approach and ensure that your pre-join experience is relevant and voluntary.

For example, you don’t want to bombard your new hire with parties and conference calls. You are supposed to get to know people as you join a new company, but it is important to be aware that when people leave a job, they sometimes need time before starting. Sometimes you just want a vacation and to be with your friends and family. You don’t want to create a pre-join experience that makes the candidate feel like it is controlling their life.

Instead, ask someone what their availability is. This allows them to set aside time in a way that makes sense for them. Just be careful about making them feel like this is going to take over their life.

What are the activities that organizations can deliver during the pre-joining period?

Mohit Garg: Let’s look at this from the perspective of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the basic level, a new hire needs to understand how the organization offers an opportunity for a secure life for their family. At the next level, an employee is concerned with work-life balance as well as how to further learning and their future career. They want to align their aspirations with the business. The third level is for new hire self-actualization with the new hire thinking about corporate social responsibility and the ecological footprint of the business. They want to know how the business is investing in the community and working with employee partners in charity opportunities.

You want to try to hit on all three levels of Maslow’s hierarchy with a readily available pre-join program that communicates the value proposition of the business. Incorporate success examples. For example, show the “12-year employee story” featuring a long-time respected employee in the business. You can also show how the organization is making the world a better place with stories of how the business supports the community. Think of it as a welcome package with continued engagement, delivered through multiple channels – email, print materials, and online communities.

Todd Raphael: Here are some more ideas. You can facilitate many activities online. Sodexo and ADP send newsletters to employees and send a modified version to potential employees – of course, you want to make sure that it is relevant. You could have future employees meet their future co-workers in a private online group or use Twitter or other social media to have current employees welcome future employees. Put together a document, an email, or a video with half a dozen employees talking about what they are doing and what they are excited about.

Make an inspiring video. For example, if you are a shoe company, you can feature an inspiring athlete who has used your shoes. If you provide medical devices, show a patient that has benefited. This can be really inspiring. In every industry, you have former customers, buyers, and partners. Show the impact your business is making on the world to future employees.

In terms of offline activities, you could Invite your new hire to company calls and get-togethers, but again be respectful of time. Check in with the new hire and see how they are feeling. Allow time for a check-in to address any concerns they may have before the first day.

Another angle to consider is your current employees. When a new employee starts, the employer is often thinking about how to make the experience good for them, but they don’t think about current employees who are often nervous. The current employee may be thinking: are they going to be promoted in my place? Are they a threat?

To address this, consider communicating what the new employee’s role is all about. Make your current team member feel valued. Work on reducing their anxiety and nervousness.

How can you influence the possibility of employee retention during pre-join?

Todd Raphael: The problem starts pretty early for external hires. It stems from when they get to work and it isn’t like what they expected. Start with setting expectations early. To get a handle on expectations, talk to your own employees and see what they experienced. You might find out things you didn’t know about the new hire experience and then you can tailor accordingly.

Also, there may be an opportunity for long-time employees to be involved. Have the new hire meet up with a mentor for coffee during pre-join. This is often more beneficial than the new hire meeting with their future manager who may be busy or not as good at coaching. The new hire benefits from knowing that they can ask questions of someone who can advise them but is not connected to hiring and firing.

Mohit Garg: To add to Todd’s point, you also have to consider what stage the employee is in and connect the pre-join to the post-join experience. This requires communication between human resources, recruiting, and learning and development as the new hire get handed off to different groups throughout the new hire onboarding experience. A seamless view of the new hire experience is needed.

Typically only public domain material is available. Once they are inside the building, then proprietary information is then made available. So one of the challenges for businesses in the pre-join period is having a way to deliver access to secure company information before day one.

Secure online learning platforms like Mindtickle enable you to provide links to private information with a pre-join program login. This provides an opportunity for motivated new hires to learn as much as they want before formal new hire orientation starts.

Using gamification in a pre-join program, you can begin to identify the strengths of new hires beyond what you know from the interview process. It also allows employees to self-select and show progress as part of the pre-join experience. New hire self-selection and performance on learning modules can be good indicators in order to skill matching. This can help retention in the long run.

What is the best way for organizations get started developing a pre-join program?

Todd Raphael: Human resources managers should speak with recruiters to get a sense of what would be good. Look at your company’s history with pre-join and new hire onboarding to figure out what the gaps are. You are looking for what prospective employees are concerned about.

You might also look at Glassdoor to see what are people saying about your company. Don’t forget to talk to your current employees as they are a valuable resource in creating a strong pre-join experience!

Mohit Garg: It is also important to begin by looking at the mix of hires joining your organization. For example, are the entry-level hires or lateral hires? These segments have different needs. You have to treat entry-level campus hires differently than lateral recruiting hires that come to the business with more experience. Technology can help you deliver a flexible experience that recognizes differences in new hire needs. Technology can help automate the order and priority for pre-join content delivery.

Next, you can implement a small pilot and have pre-join new hires go through it. You can get feedback and ensure that target outcomes are being achieved. Start with a geography or a region and scale from there.

Thank you, Todd and Mohit for your helpful insight on building a great new hire pre-join experience!

What are your thoughts on more inspired ways to deliver an excellent pre-join new hire onboarding experience? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

Todd Raphael is a widely cited/quoted figure in the employment/HR/recruiting world and is the Chief Editor at ERE. Find ERE at www.ere.net.

Mohit Garg is the Co-Founder of Mindtickle. Prior to co-founding Mindtickle, he served as a Director in PwC’s management consulting practice in New York. He was awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Startup Leadership Program (SLP) in 2012. Mr. Garg holds an MBA degree from ISB and an MSEE from Stanford University.

10 Millennial Personality Traits That HR Managers Can’t Ignore

Shankar Ganapathy on September 1, 2016

According to research, 91% of Millennials expect to stay in their current job for three years or less, with 45% of companies reporting higher turnover rates among this group vs. other generations. They have no problem leaving a job for one that will be more accommodating to their millennial characteristics such as personal values and ambitions, holding these at a premium over career advancement in their current company. While Millennials are ambitious to move up in their careers, loyalty to the organization is not a particularly strong value.

If this is setting off your alarms, you are not the only one. Many hiring managers are concerned with the rapid job turnover of Millennials. You already know the impact of losing an employee after a short time after having invested in their learning and development.

It is critical to understand Millennial characteristics and how to keep them engaged at work.

Irrespective of the long-term aims and ambitions of an individual company, the ability to attract and retain millennial talent will be a vital step to achieving it.

– PwC’s 14th Annual Global CEO Survey

Here are 10 key personality traits human resources managers and learning and development professionals should understand when cultivating today’s Millennials to be tomorrow’s business leaders.

1. Millennial characteristics: motivated by meaning

What else do they want for career happiness? Millennials are constantly on the lookout for a job that provides more “meaning”. What does “meaning” mean, exactly? Through interviews, Fast Company uncovered that meaningful work allows you to:

Share your gifts
Make an impact in the lives of others
Live your desired quality of life.

Getting these three components to align is the goal, but it’s certainly not easy. Millennials derive a sense of meaning from helping others, with 84% agreeing with the statement, “Knowing I am helping to make a positive difference in the world is more important to me than professional recognition.”

Finding meaning in their work isn’t just a “wouldn’t it be nice” factor – it’s fundamental. 77% of Millennials stated that their ability to excel in their job is contingent upon deriving meaning from their work. Unfortunately, less than half report feeling that they actually get this sense of “meaning”. Clearly, the structures currently in place by most organizations to motivate Millennials simply aren’t cutting it.

According to the 2013 Millennial Impact Research Report, organizations will know their message is resonating when Millennials are compelled to share their content. It’s an instant feedback loop that tells organizations what this audience finds interesting and worth disseminating. Sharing, in fact, is a form of indirect advocacy, in that it furthers education about the cause and draws other people to the issue.

2. Millennials challenge hierarchical structures

Millennials aren’t afraid to share their opinions and ideas, nor challenge those of their superiors. This comes not from a disdain for authority, but from the notion that the best possible outcome for the company will come from listening to everybody’s point of view.

They prefer a cross-functional way of working that transcends the constraints of rank, genuinely believing this is better for the business than blindly following orders passed down from the top of the totem pole.

3. Millennials want a relationship with their boss

Millennials want a manager that they can regard as a mentor, even a friend. They want to feel comfortable asking for feedback and advice and establishing a rapport of frequent communication. They work best in companies where they feel they have a “work family”, with co-workers and superiors looking out for them as individuals, not just trying to retain them as a “resource”.

4. Millennials are tech savvy, to say the least

Millennials breathe technology – though that may be an understatement… 53% of millennials said they rather get rid of their sense of smell than their digital devices. These “digital natives” grew up playing educational games in middle school and expressing themselves on social media in high school. In the work setting, Millennials don’t just approve of using social media, they insist on it, with 56% saying they would not accept jobs from companies that ban social media. They disagree with the notion that social media is a productivity-suck, having a keen understanding of the many ways that it can support a company’s business goals. Millennials have a firm grasp on how to use these tools to do things like build relationships, crowdsource solutions and research information on demand.

5. Millennials are open to change

Millennials don’t agree with doing something a certain way just because that’s how it’s always been done. They recognize that the business and technology landscape is constantly changing and that our ways of working should change with them. This gives them the reputation of sticking their nose up at the status quo, but with how quickly things are changing – is this really a bad thing?

6. Millennials are task (not time) oriented

69% of Millennials say they believe office attendance on a regular basis is unnecessary and 89% prefer to choose when and where they work rather than being placed in a 9-5 position. This is because they measure productivity by work completed, not by time spent in the office. They see no point in tracking an employee’s “facetime”, finding more importance in the actual value that he or she delivers to the organization. They are comfortable telecommuting and don’t mind working late nights and weekends, while recognizing the importance of taking personal time to recharge, for themselves and for their work. The ability to be flexible with when and where they do their work allows them to make more room for family and personal pursuits, aspects which they hold in high regard. For this reason, 45% of Millennials will choose a workplace with more flexibility over one with higher pay

7. Millennials have a hunger for learning

Just because Millennials are out of college, doesn’t mean they want to be done with learning. In fact, a strong millennial characteristic is that they are eager to continue expanding their skill sets and amassing knowledge, and holding intellectual stimulation as a top factor in workplace motivation.

Beyond understanding how to perform a task – Millennials want to know why. 95% said that they are motivated to work harder when they understand the importance of a particular task within the context of the company’s big-picture goals.

Also, social media is a key channel for learning and information transfer. According to the 2013 Millennial Impact Research Report, Millennials who want constant updates on an organization no longer rely on or return to websites to receive that information. Instead, they use websites first to learn about the organization, and then to connect with its social networks to stay updated. The smoother and more integrated the online experience, the better.

8. Millennials crave constant feedback

80% of Millennials said they want to receive regular feedback from their managers. They don’t want to have to wait for their mid-year review, preferring to receive bite-size feedback more often. They want to have clarity on how they’re doing day-by-day, seeing performance management as an ongoing journey, vs. a one-off event.

9. Millennials want recognition

Millennials also expect recognition for their hard work and accomplishments, with 89% saying a reward should be given for a job well done. This isn’t because this generation is needy and self-centered, rather – it’s because they crave indications that their superiors approve of their work. Unlike previous generations, they’re not holding off for the promotions and raises promised down the road – they want to know if they’re being successful today.

10. Millennials (don’t just) want to have fun!

Arguably, everyone wants to have fun – but Millennials want and even expect it in the workplace. With their less formal, task-oriented approach to work – they want to be able to have light moments in the workplace. This shouldn’t be confused with laziness or lack of professionalism – indeed, Millennials find business value in bonding with teammates and taking a break for creative inspiration. Not surprisingly, 90% of Millennials want their workplace to be social and fun, and 88% say that a positive company culture is essential to their dream job.

Next steps for learning and development professionals

So what does this mean for learning and development professionals? You can start by nailing down the following points for a successful Millennial learning and development plan described in this recent report by PWC:

Provide mentoring and coaching. Millennials respond well to mentoring from more experienced employees. They would like to see their manager as a coach who supports them in their professional development – just keep in mind that they generally prefer to learn by the application than by being told what to do.
Set clear targets and offer regular and structured feedback. Millennials welcome and expect detailed regular feedback. 51% of those questioned said feedback should be given very frequently or continually on the job and only 1% said feedback was not important to them. That’s huge!
Cultivate an environment of continuous learning. Millennials expect ongoing learning as they enter the workplace and spend a high proportion of their time absorbing new information. 35% said they were attracted to employers who offer excellent training and development programs for this reason and saw it as the top benefit they wanted from an employer.
Invest in learning technology. Millennials respond well to a range of digital learning styles and delivery methods, which might include online learning modules, webinars or interactive game-play. They are innately collaborative and accustomed to learning in teams and by doing.
Offer training in workplace behavior and culture. Human resources leaders have found that millennials often require training in fundamental workplace behavior and culture. Because they are accustomed to instant responses when they chat with friends via text, they may not realize that older workers do not always treat messages with the same urgency.

By understanding the millennial generation characteristics outlined above, companies can address the professional values that make this demographic so different from past generations.

Need Help Creating a New Hire Training Program? Try These Shortcuts

Shankar Ganapathy on June 30, 2016

How to Conduct Half Year Reviews For Your Sales Team

Shankar Ganapathy on June 3, 2016

It’s nearly time for the bi-annual performance review performance again. As I pulled out data and started to fill out forms for each of my sales reps, I started to think about how much benefit this process provides to them and whether there’s a way to actually make the mid-year performance review process more relevant from a sales perspective.
Turning to LinkedIn, I came across some interesting conversations on the way different managers approach reviews for their sales staff. The consensus seems to be that while a biannual review process may suit some business teams, it just isn’t adequate for sales managers. As David Collins Oliver observes, “The key is that if your sales manager is effective, they should be shadowing each salesperson periodically, doing quick one on ones, actively communicating with their team to truly understand the effectiveness of each salesperson. Thus, the one on ones should not be a major ordeal, unless of course the salesperson has not been performinng.
Edmund Chien agrees that more regular reviews are necessary for sales managers, “We conduct weekly mini-reviews. It’s much better to make small adjustments than going the wrong way for 6 or 12 months.”
In fact Brian Geery went as far as to say that you could almost do away with the biannual review process altogether:
“If your sales manager(s) are providing regular coaching and if you have monthly sales activity goals and annual sales quotas, there is no need for a mid-year review.”
However, others did offer some good thoughts on how to use the mid-year check-in to gather feedback and plan development opportunities. I really like this idea put forward by Craig Preston, “I think a great tool for mutual benefit is the 2-way review (allowing staff to also provide a review for management). This helps managers as well, and really aligns expectations of both salespeople and their managers.”
What appeared clear from my research is that coaching and reviews go hand in hand, and they should be part of the day-to-day management of a sales rep.

So How Often Should You Review Your Sales Reps?

There really are no hard and fast rules about how often you should review your sales reps, but it’s closely aligned to the level of coaching that they require. So it really depends on what stage of maturity they’re at as a sales rep. For example, your new hires will require a much higher touch than seasoned professionals who are operating at full productivity. There are four stages of development that we’ve identified that indicate the level of both coaching and periodic reviews. There are four stages of development that we’ve identified that indicate the level of both coaching and periodic reviews.

Micromanagement – When you’re just getting your newbie up and running they need more tactical coaching and micro-management. For these reps, you’re probably speaking to them every day, reviewing their numbers and seeing how they’re doing;
Activity – For new reps who are moving up their cycle of growth or your C Players, their performance may look predictable but it’s still not quite up to par. Their coaching needs are more activity based, focusing on specific skill gaps but they will still need you to watch over their performance closely. At this stage, you’re probably reviewing their performance a few times a week.
Pipeline – For consistent performers, your solid B Players, they’re ready to be more independent. Coaching should focus on helping them manage their pipeline. As they progress into this stage, they may only need you to review their performance once a week.
Results – The final stage of development is for those who are clear challengers, achieving results and performing at full productivity. These are your A Players and they’re independent performers. While you may not need to review them every week, it’s still important to check in regularly and work on areas of strategic coaching for fine-tuning and to keep them engaged.
While you prepare to tick the box for the mid-year review process, the reality is that this shouldn’t be the first time you talk to your reps about their quota or their development. Conducting regular reviews and structured coaching to plug gaps and develop each rep based on their individual needs will ensure there are no surprises at the end of the year. While HR may not allow you to do away with the mid-year performance review altogether, you can use this time to create a solid plan for developing your sales staff and a checkpoint to ensure that structured development and coaching plans are on track.
While HR may not allow you to do away with the mid-year performance review altogether, you can use this time to create a solid plan for developing your sales staff and a checkpoint to ensure that structured development and coaching plans are on track.

What Channel Partner Strategy is Right for Your Business?

Shankar Ganapathy on May 14, 2016

Recently, I found myself having similar conversations about how to manage channel partners with several customers from very different industries. The customers were in retail, technology, and hospitality respectively, but they each had similarities in the way they dealt with these partner relationships. The differences in their channel partner strategies were not due to their industries but rather were influenced by the stage of their business was at, or very specific market factors.

Despite their differences, there was one overriding principle to how they approached their channel partnerships; it’s a strategic investment for their business. While their reasoning may differ, this didn’t detract from the importance of these relationships to their sales efforts and bottom line. For example, FMCG producer Dabur Asia explained how channel partners were a critical player linking their retailers and customers. At the other spectrum, enterprise cloud platform producer Nutanix utilizes these arrangements to help them unlock doors in new geographies quickly.

Common threads also appeared in terms of their sales model and their enablement strategy, so much so, that I identified three broad channel partner strategies. Before I launch into these, it’s helpful to outline what I mean when talking about channel partnerships.

A channel partner specializes in various aspects of the sales process and undertakes this as a service on behalf of a business. Nutanix uses channel partners to help them scale quickly by undertaking just lead generation in some geographies, while they use their own sales engineer to conduct demos. But in new locations where they have no sales team, the channel partners help them expand with minimal investment, by managing their entire sales process right through to closing. They also have premium partners who are able to unlock doors which they cannot directly.

Based on these recent customer discussions the three channel partner strategies I’ve identified are: Exclusive, Targeted and Global.

1. Exclusive channel partnership strategy

Best for when you have a point solution.

A friend of mine has a software startup that sells email encryption software to large enterprises. As large companies tend to purchase their product as part of a broader email security solution, their only go-to-market strategy is to use channel partners who have expert knowledge. They bundle several point offerings as part of an overall solution for the larger business problem. Businesses in this position prefer aligning themselves with channel partners who are SMEs in their field, who they can provide with exclusive access to their solution.

The key challenges in an exclusive channel partnership are to engage your channel partner reps. As each one is an SME in their area, they already know and understand the benefits that you offer, but keeping them highly motivated to sell your solution as part of their bundled package is critical. This is why most point solutions I’ve seen have a dedicated channel manager, who works closely with their partners to make sure they stay engaged.

An effective partner enablement strategy includes a strong onboarding program that focuses in on helping them sell your solution.

As they’re an exclusive channel partner, there’s plenty of scope for you to tailor the program to take into account their business model and even integrate any other training they may have already undertaken. This will ensure your solution makes sense within their overall contingent and adds value to their sales goals. As your channel partner reps are already SMEs the onboarding program doesn’t need to be long or intensive. Providing them with enough information to enable them to have some early wins, will help get them on their way quickly.

2. Targeted channel partnership strategy

Best for when you’re just starting to test the waters with channel partners. Most companies I’ve seen already have a very successful sales track record and are leveraging channel partners to help them grow rapidly. It’s not about signing up everyone who could sell their solution, but rather about building strategic partnerships that will take them where they want to go.

One of our customers sells tea in India, and are leveraging a franchise model to grow their business exponentially. These franchises are essentially channel partners, who open shop fronts to sell their specialty teas.

To maintain their growth trajectory, they’ve found that they need to ensure the franchise reps can represent their business in the same way their in-house sales reps do.

Aligning their channel partners with their business values, customer service philosophy and product messaging is key to their success. Similarly, another customer in the tech industry is building on its $100m revenue base, as it prepares for an IPO in a couple of years. It’s facing the same issues, as its channel partner reps also need to be able to sing the same song as their in-house sales reps to be successful.

This is a high touch strategy, bringing on board only a few channel partners at a time. With only a few channel partners on board, ensuring their success early is critical to maximizing revenue.

The key challenges are being able to not only get your channel partner reps up to speed quickly but also ensure that they understand how to sell your solution effectively. Investing in and providing support to your channel partners early on can make all the difference to their success.

An effective partner enablement strategy includes not only onboarding your channel partner reps quickly, but also certifying them so that you have comfort in knowing they can sell your product or service effectively.

Our high-growth customers that have executed this strategy have actually made sure that their channel partner (or franchise) reps have actually passed their certification before they can go out and sell. While it may take a couple of months to get each new channel partner up to scratch, by putting in place a robust certification program they have found that the additional effort was worthwhile in the long-run.

3. Global channel partnership strategy

Best for businesses that are looking to expand across more than one geography, or even globally in a short time frame.

Depending on your business structure, you may have several different levels to your channel partnerships, some tackling only part of the sales process, while others may sell right through to close. For example, Nutanix, expanded globally in just 24 months by bringing on board channel partners in different countries. In some countries, their channel partners are the sole sales representatives for their product, responsible for the entire sales process. In other locations, they leverage channel partners to supply leads, while their own sales and account engineers conduct demos and close their deals.

The key challenge in this strategy is to keep your channel partner reps engaged with your solution, and up to date with any new information about your product or service. This may cover everything from marketing offers to success stories or even changes in your competitive environment.

An effective partner enablement strategy often has a tiered approach, as different channel partners may have different responsibilities. Nutanix has several tiers to its enablement strategy, as the onboarding and certification required for a channel partner who is charged with closing a deal are different to one who only handles lead generation. The former includes training on demos and objection handling, which would just be superfluous for the latter.

They’ve found it’s critical that their channel partner’s reps are ready to sell at all times. Just like their own in-house sales reps, they need the latest information to do their job effectively. From success stories to competitive insights, keeping them up to date not only builds on their knowledge base, and helps keep them engaged with their solution, ensuring it stays top of mind.

Regardless of which strategy you employ, your end game is to ensure that your channel partners achieve success. So once you have the right partners on board, enabling them to sell your solution is, of course, a priority. Next, I’ll take you through the four things I’ve discovered that can help your channel partners sell more.

14 Best Practices for Making Sales Kickoff a Success

Shankar Ganapathy on March 23, 2016

Your sales kickoff is one of your most important initiatives, with the potential to motivate your reps to achieve phenomenal success this year. How do you inspire, educate, motivate and celebrate your sales team in a way that helps them not only achieve but exceed their revenue targets for the year? Some of the most successful minds in the business share their secrets to a successful sales kickoff.

1. Align sales kickoff content with company goals

To achieve your revenue targets, your sales team needs to align with the overall goals of your organization. A great way to do this according to Cara Hogan of Insight Squared is by the Executive level talking about business strategy, “This kind of open and transparent discussion of company strategy helps the sales team see the bigger picture so they understand that they’re working toward a larger goal.”

Going further, Joe Wilburn, Director of Sales for Brooks Group says, “People need a purpose (other than just commission), so each and every member of your team should know exactly how their work positively contributes to the company’s mission. Aligning individual efforts with your organization’s purpose will keep everyone motivated to hit their own goals throughout the year—doing their part to add to the success of the team. Lay out the strategy and exactly how each player will be expected to contribute so your salespeople can clearly see where the company is going and their role within it.”

2. Choose a theme for your event

Choosing a theme will help set the tone and agenda for your sales kickoff. Tom Snyder, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of VorsightBP says, “Too often we see sales kickoffs without a theme or with a theme that is lackluster. If success [to you] is about motivation then you want a theme that you will recognize as motivating.”

3. Set the agenda carefully

After the theme, comes an agenda that must meet your objectives. But as David Freeman, VP Corporate Sales of Nutanix points out, what you put into the agenda is just as important as what you leave out.

“We have a lot of execs who want to talk about their area. We have to limit the airtime for people who just want to get up there. We have to focus on what the participants need for this session in a face-to-face session. We may give them another opportunity to address the team, but we’re not giving people airtime just because they ask for it. We also don’t do topics that can be covered by webinars anymore. If it’s just updated on product releases or informative one-way sessions, we’ll schedule webinars or other sessions.”

Mohit Garg, Co-Founder and CRO of Mindtickle suggest, “Before you settle on an agenda, talk to your reps and crowdsource ideas, obtain feedback, and help direct the sessions. Their suggestions, as well as some quick quizzes, may help you highlight knowledge gaps that you can focus on, rather than guessing what the reps need.”

It’s also important to ensure that the agenda remains flexible. Freeman comments, “It can’t be one size fits all. Let people choose their own adventure. It’s important to let people figure out what they need at this point in their career, based on their role, their tenure, and their specialization. Allow them to develop the skills they need.”

4. Set pre-work for the sales kickoff

Your sales kickoff is an integral part of your annual sales calendar, so it’s only reasonable to expect your reps to prepare for the big event. As Art Sobczak, Author of “Smart Calling” notes “Just like a comedian has a warm-up act, so too should you, in order for the sales pros to be excited and prepped when they arrive. Assign pre-work, have speakers do videos or webinars “teasing” the material, or even short sessions on the content to be covered.”

5. Create an atmosphere of healthy competition

As part of the pre-work, you can get the reps motivated with a little healthy competition. Mohit Garg suggests, “Have your reps do a pitch competition or complete bite-sized quizzes at the end of every day, and host a leaderboard so each rep can see how they compare against their peers. The competition can continue throughout the kickoff and culminate in an award at the recognition night. Gamified techniques like leaderboards are a great way to create a bit of healthy competition and get everyone excited, before, during, and even after the event.”

6. Provide time for interaction and cross-pollination

Whether it’s a casual dinner or more formal roundtables, providing time for people from different business units to interact and share ideas will be invaluable as the year progresses. David Freeman suggests, “Create opportunities for interaction between execs and reps, reps and reps, engineers and reps. We’ve forced this into our kickoffs sessions that force these. Panels with execs with Q&A, roundtables with salespeople, breakouts with engineers and reps. And time at the bar is just as important as the time in the session. Need to give people time to unwind, have fun, share war stories.”

7. Share success stories

One of the best ways for salespeople to learn how to close a deal is by hearing success stories straight from the horse’s mouth. Steve W. Martin, Author of the “Heavy Hitter” series makes some suggestions on how to present these to the team, “I would recommend that you have your top salespeople be interviewed in a talk show program format by a moderator who has an extensive sales background. I have found these types of panels are the most effective way to relay both the tangible and intangible aspects of winning to the rest of the team.” Mohit Garg adds, “I recommend recording these interviews and making them accessible in an online content library so reps can refer back to them whenever they need to.”

8. Include a variety of sessions

There’s nothing worse than sitting in one PowerPoint presentation after another. To keep people engaged Steve W. Martin suggests, “Break the session into chunks of time no longer than sixty minutes. Also, break up heavy technical chunks with lighter topics, completely different subject matter, or audience participation activities. This way, the attendees will remain mentally fresh and have higher retention.”

9. Don’t forget your customers

When planning the agenda, it’s important to ensure that your customer’s voice is heard. Joshua Meeks, Revenue Growth Consultant suggests conducting customer research, “Conduct at least 5 win and 5 loss interviews. During the interviews ask the customer about the process they went through to come to their decision. Why did they choose to do nothing, go with the competition or select us? What was their opinion of us? It is important to ensure the content covered and the skills developed are in sync with buyer needs.”

Steve W. Martin also suggests using customer interviews to understand the decision-making process of your customers, “it provides a true snapshot of the competition’s strengths and weaknesses according to the person who matters most—the prospective customer.”

10. Celebrate and recognize your top players

“Recognition is critical,” David Freeman says. “Make sure you’re recognizing the top people. One because they deserve recognition and need to be acknowledged, but also it’s great for everyone who’s new or not so successful to see the celebration of those people and give them something to shoot for in the coming year.”

“If you’re giving awards for specific achievements make sure you capture on video a clip of the rep talking about how they achieved their accomplishment. This can be used later as sound-bites or in the online content library,” recommend Mohit Garg.

11. Reinforce concepts

Lori Richardson of Score More Sales suggests reinforcing some of the key concepts during the event, “Games like Jeopardy are great because they can reinforce ideas for the upcoming year while also being fun and they get everyone involved.”

But once the kickoff ends, the hard work really begins. The team at Selling Power recommends, “Whenever you send an email, start a meeting, or get the team on a conference call, take a minute to highlight a recent story that illustrates the messaging from your sales kickoff – and make an explicit connection between the two.”

Mohit Garg also suggests leveraging the content from the kickoff, “Weave sound-bites from the kickoff into follow-up sessions to make sure the messages stay with the team and build a cadence for reinforcement that continues throughout the year.”

12. Pay attention to the details

While it may seem more like administration, David Freeman notes, “The location matters – you want people to have fun and socialize. You get more out of people engaged that way and more motivated when out in the field. Put in extra attention to make sure people are happy with the food. It might seem small but it can increase morale significantly.”

13. Request and act on feedback

We’re all used to filling out forms at the end of a sales kickoff, but there’s more to gain by checking the pulse of the event while it’s still going on. Mohit Garg suggests, “Take a quick poll at the end of each session to find out what’s resonating and get some real-time feedback that you can act on immediately. It’s energizing when people can see that they’re being listened to and taken seriously.”

14. Evaluate the event

Once it’s all done and dusted, it’s important to make sure the kickoff achieved your objectives. Joshua Meeks recommends, “To ensure proper adoption of content and sales skills, survey the sales force. Ascertain if knowledge gaps have been closed and skill sets improve. The best time to survey the field is one month after sales kickoff. If sales reps aren’t using the new content and skills after a month, they never will.”

Mohit Garg also suggests, “You can track who is engaged with the content long after the event by using technology. If materials are accessible online, some platforms allow you to track who has accessed it and how frequently. This is a good indicator of engagement and can indicate adoption of the materials.”

4 Tips To Help You Find The Key Sales Decision-Maker

Shankar Ganapathy on March 6, 2016

Connecting with the sales decision-maker is one of the hardest parts of the B2B journey. On top of that, the buying process has transformed. Mindtickle co-founder Mohit Garg noted, “Nearly one-third of technology purchasing power has moved to executives outside of IT. And in some situations, business line managers now control the decision-making process from beginning to end, with little to no involvement from the CIO and/or IT. It is not enough to fit the IT blueprint. Startup sales teams need to create new entry points and doors into the business functions likely to be the biggest beneficiaries or most active users of their offering.”

Easier said than done, I set about researching the best way to identify key sales decision-makers, and here’s a summary of the best advice and tips I found.

1. Identify the buyer (and anti-buyer) personas

We all know that the starting point for understanding who your customers are is by defining them, and creating buyer personas is one of the best ways to do this. Sam Kusinitz defines a buyer persona as “a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”

I found this list of questions to help create buyer personas by Aaron Agius particularly useful. We got our sales and service team, as well as marketing and technology teams, involved so that we could create a complete picture of each buyer persona. Focus groups with potential buyers are also invaluable in this process, so you can hear the answers direct from the horse’s mouth.

One thing that I’ve found important to remember when putting together buyer personas, is to be clear about what part of the buying process each individual participates in. The person who signs the check may not be the one who really chooses the product that will be purchased. Sean McPheat has identified 5 different roles in the purchasing process:

The Initiator – the person who decides to start the buying process.
The Influencer – the person who tries to convince others they need the product.
The Decider – the person who makes the final decision to purchase.
The Buyer – the person who is going to write you the check.
The User – the person who ends up using your product, whether he had a say in the buying process or not.

These aren’t always five different people. For example, we’ve found that in some instances the sales enablement manager may be the Initiator and Influencer when it comes to purchasing a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, and while they may make the recommendation of what to buy, it’s their boss that usually gives the final approval.

He argues that you should also speak directly to your anti-buyer persona.

The prospect will never buy from us because we frankly are not the best option for them. But in the process of verbalizing that we’re not the ideal fit for so many prospects we in-turn generate trust with the folks that we are a good fit for.

Having this clarity is a win/win for everyone.

2. Mapping the buyer experience

Once the buyer personas have been created, the next stage is mapping their journey. This is to ensure that you and your content reaches the right audience. Michael King has put together a great example of mapping the buyer journey for Moz. He points out:

Some portions of the user journey is online, some is off. All of these need states that are relevant to the business can be mapped to the consumer decision journey and your funnel for better measurement and optimization, but what’s important is understanding user needs and how to support them at all relevant stages in order to meet the business objectives.

3. Incorporating buyer personas into sales training

Once you’ve created your buyer personas, mapped their experience and have content that helps guide them through their buying process, the next stage is making sure that your sales people understand the buyer personas. As Mohit Garg says:

Your rep should be able to understand and articulate what the different customer personas are, how they differ, and how to recognize them. They should also understand how the product satisfies their needs, and articulate the value proposition clearly, along with its competitive advantage.

This is where marketing and sales come together for the benefit of the customer.

4. Keep it fresh

Just as we change the way we work and how we approach things, so do our customers. So Anna Ritchie of the Content Market Institute suggests that buyer personas are revisited regularly to ensure they’re still relevant. We’ve taken on board one of her ideas at Mindtickle,

Before you start your next content project, try going back to the drawing board with your personas, looking closely at whether each one still accurately reflects your target audience’s current life situation and purchasing needs….start by carefully considering how this persona’s needs have changed, and how you may want to adjust your messaging, content formats, and content delivery strategies, as a result.

7 Habits of Effective Sales Enablement: Continuous Improvement

Shankar Ganapathy on January 27, 2016

You’ve spent painstaking hours, weeks, and months designing and implementing a sales enablement plan and the results are in. You’ve reduced the time it takes to ramp-up new sales hires and make them productive by nearly a month and the sales managers are sitting up and taking notice. It’s finally time to sit back and take a break, right. Wrong!

Sales enablement isn’t something you can design once, and then set and forget. Things are changing every day; new features, new customers, new competitors, new strategies. Before you’ve even seen the results from your new design it’s already out of date. This is why effective sales enablement managers always enable continuous process improvement. They aim to strive higher, set new benchmarks, and improve on their design

This doesn’t mean that you have to redesign your entire process every other week, but making time to continuously question, analyze and improve, can make all the difference to your sales performance.

Owning the sales enablement process

It’s important to first understand the key players in the process that you want to evaluate and improve, in particular, the process owner and the outcome owner.

The process owner in sales enablement is almost invariably you, the sales enablement leader. You have an overriding responsibility to ensure that the process fits within your company’s policies, existing processes, and meets its objectives. Looking at the entire end-to-end sales enablement process across a rep’s lifeline (from onboarding, ensuring consistent messaging, field communication, etc.), you understand what capabilities and tools are available and required to enable reps at each stage. Essentially you are the process champion.

However, the process owner doesn’t always own the outcomes of their process. For example, sales managers may be responsible for win rates, but it’s you who helps them achieve this. To an outcome owner, the process is just a means to an end.

This distinction is important when considering continuous improvement. While identifying the required outcomes for the process is part of the process owner’s role, you are merely facilitators to achieve the end of an objective. your evaluation process needs to look at a broad range of factors that may impact that outcome, focusing on improving the actual process, not just zeroing in on the outcomes.

Making time for evaluation

With the specific roles clarified, the real work starts. The key to continuous process improvement is leveraging data to measure and identify what’s working and what’s not.

Now you know it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, that’s why you need to schedule a time to evaluate your process. One effective way I’ve seen this done is by having a quarterly review process. For 11 weeks you run your sales enablement initiatives and then for one week a quarter you step back, review data, and business information, and identify ways to improve the process.

So in that one week a quarter, what should you be looking for? Here are some things that you could evaluate to identify improvements to your sales enablement process:

Undertake a cohort analysis to see what trends are evolving. For example, if your business is hiring a lot of new sales reps, look at how one month’s recruits compare to the next, in terms of ramp-up speed, readiness levels, etc. If it’s improving, what has been working and how can that be improved upon?
Take a look at whether there have been any changes to your organization’s sales and product strategy. Has the business started pursuing enterprise prospects more aggressively, when they previously focused on the SMB segment? What changes are needed to enable sales reps to meet these customers’ needs?
Review your competitors and identify if there have been any changes that may have shifted your relative strengths and weaknesses. These then need to be communicated to reps, and their readiness tested to ensure they understand this competitive intelligence and how it may impact how they talk to buyers.
If there have been major product releases this quarter, are reps up to speed with how these are positioned and the messaging that should be communicated to buyers? Can the product update process be improved so that reps are up to speed quicker?

By monitoring and analyzing this data you may find the areas where your sales enablement can be improved or even changed. Even if you only make small changes, over time it will make a significant improvement to your reps’ results and the bottom line of your business.

Encouraging continuous improvement

While you may be the process owner, that doesn’t mean others can’t be involved in improving the process with you. Effective sales enablement leaders find ways to share relevant data and analysis with other stakeholders, like sales managers, and obtain their input into the improvement process. After all, those who use different parts of the process each day will no doubt have ideas on how it can be improved upon. It’s particularly important for sales managers to be consulted as they have day-to-day communication with their reps and can provide insights on the coaching required to improve weaknesses.

Surveys, polls, and even one on ones, where you request feedback, can all be helpful ways to encourage others to share their ideas.

Process improvement is always a work in progress. What works today may not fit the organization tomorrow, or some new tool or technology could transform a part of your process overnight. The trick to effective sales enablement is to never stop looking for those little gems, that all add up to a transformational sales process.

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