How to Build An Effective Sales Academy

What's a Sales Academy?

A sales academy is a structured system put in place by a company for developing its sales team. Such systems consist of:

• Numerous training programs, which together form a single competency framework for driving the performance of sales professionals over time.  However, this doesn’t mean that a sales academy is “one size fits all” – on the contrary, it can and should address the different curriculum needs for the range of sales roles that exist in a complex commercial selling organization from Business Development Professionals up through Global Account Managers
• Benchmarking tools to monitor progress and consistency in best practices for sales
• Content delivery through a variety of avenues such as written material, classroom training, digital learning tools, and coaching

What's Included in a Sales Academy?

A sales academy includes a collection of learning tools like written material, instructor-led classroom training, digital learning tools and coaching.

Leaders and trainers use whichever teaching method is best for conveying the material. For example, instructor-led classroom training is an effective way to learn and practice negotiating or handling objections because participants can engage in role-play. Other attendees can offer feedback on the interactions and allow the learner to capitalize on broad-based insights.

Digital learning tools, which can be used on the go, are an excellent resource for field sales professionals working on-site with customers. Online courses leverage multiple learning styles — auditory, visual and written response — and are suitable for all participants.

What Are the Benefits of a Sales Academy?

Sales professionals increasingly work in teams and need to be a cohesive group. With a sales academy in place, leaders know that each team member is working from the same group of core skills. Training like this boosts engagement, which is a key driver of business outcomes. Other benefits include:

• Improved quota attainment and win rates
• Continual skill improvement that goes beyond one-and-done
• A roadmap to career advancement
• Skill building that moves in lockstep with industry changes
• Shorter time to productivity for new sales professionals
• A forum for exchanging ideas and strategies
• 360-degree development that covers all aspects of the sales cycle

How Do You Start to Build a Sales Academy?

Start with a close review of the existing sales training structure within the selling organization. Have an honest discussion with the sales leader to determine what is working and what is not. Let the effective pieces survive into the new framework.

Next, look at the list of critical selling metrics to determine which will become your key focus. The idea is to start with the end in mind. For example, if the organization chooses to strategize around the goal of boosting contract value, then include material covering team selling, which is often necessary when engaging groups of decision-makers common to large sales.

After these steps, expand the conversation. Talk to the sales professionals within the organization and determine where they believe they need to focus. The sales professionals are your connection to the market; they understand what challenges and goals customers face. The intent is to identify the skills that are lacking or underdeveloped so that the training in the sales academy offers relevance. This step is critical because it makes the sales professional part of the building process, a critical step toward achieving buy-in once the academy is fully formed.

Using this feedback, partition the program into tiers. Each tier should address the skills necessary for the various selling styles. For example, consider developing the academy into these five segments:

• Inside Sales
• Field Sales
• Complex Field Sales
• Service Sales
• Sales Manager

Some of the critical skills will apply to more than one segment. For example, consultative selling skills will apply to inside sales professionals, field sales professionals, and sales managers. A more targeted group of skills, like large account planning, might only apply to global account managers.

At this point, the framework should start to take shape, but leaders will need to develop a baseline measurement strategy before going any further with the design. A sales academy is not a fixed structure; it will need to change over time. To make these changes, leaders need to know how business outcomes respond to the framework.

The success of a sales academy rests on the engagement of sales professionals with training and the subsequent application of learning content in their jobs. But do sales professionals see themselves as engaged?

To find out, Training Industry, Inc. and Richardson Sales Performance conducted a study to explore how sales professionals view the utility and usefulness of the training programs provided to them. The goal of the research was to reveal insights about what sales professionals find effective in the structure of a sales academy.

Having trouble reading the image? Download the full-sized infographic here 

Research Findings

Below is a summary of key findings from the research. Click here to download a complimentary copy of the complete research.

Preferred Structure

Our data shows that most companies rely on a mix of learner-controlled and company-mandated training. Similarly, most companies rely on a mix of structured learning paths and on-demand training. The goals of sales training typically address a mix of short- and long-term objectives.

When building a sales academy, the overarching focus is on fostering competencies over time. But what are these competencies? The best way to determine this is to look at both what the company is mandating and what learners are self-selecting.

Core competencies in sales are nothing new and typically defined by company leadership. However, metrics on learner activity can reveal places where an existing competency framework is underemphasized or imbalanced. Clearly, metrics should reflect what is going on with sales professionals, in addition to what should be going on with them. Metrics on sales competencies help define and target aspirational goals, while also providing a roadmap of what’s going on “now” and where a company is falling short of its aspirations.

Similarly, learning paths should reflect the existing competency framework with the continued ability for learners to take on-demand training, which will inform future revisions. On this foundation, a sales academy can provide the backbone to sales performance, with the agility to include new competencies or skills to meet the shifting needs of the market.

At Richardson, we've created a science-backed Sales Capability Framework. This framework builds competencies that enable your sellers to perform effectively in their specific roles and achieve strategic business goals. The Sales Capability Framework is brought to life through our Accelerate Sales Performance System, a comprehensive sales capability-building solution that brings clarity to the most critical skill gaps you need to address to move your business metrics.

Learn more about the Sales Capability Framework by watching the video below:

Effective Modalities

The most often-used as well as most effective modalities were found to be on-the-job learning and coaching sessions. Learners most often augment their formal training with written materials and internet resources.

A cornerstone of any sales academy is the ability to match content with different delivery modalities, both to maximize learning outcomes as well as to offer learners options for how to engage with training material.

Depending on the topic, it may be beneficial to have classroom training paired with follow-up coaching sessions and online modules. For a different topic, videos may introduce certain concepts, but it might take on-the-job learning for these concepts to affect performance.

Our survey showed that sales professionals do not shy away from looking outside their own companies’ curricula for sources of learning. Identifying what these are, and what topics they cover, can help identify both gaps in knowledge and skills as well as the ways in which sales professionals might be most likely to engage with content curated by the company itself in the sales academy.

Learner Goals

Learners want classroom experiences that last one day or less and digital learning modules that last 15-30 minutes. The majority of sales reps also see benefits from performance benchmarks based on their peers. This might be one of the least obvious points about building a sales academy: it’s not simply a governance exercise that is handed down to a sales force. Sales professionals need to have input into the framework because they’re the ones working within that framework.

In this research, we found two main preferences of sales learners for classroom and digital learning experiences. This goes beyond the question of which modalities are used and sheds light on how they are put into practice.

A sales academy should be built around what sales professionals are likely to engage with. A motivated learner is an engaged learner.

If their experience is positive, if the length or depth of content meets their needs without falling short or erring on the side of overkill, the metrics will tell that story over time. Similarly, peer benchmarks help shore up weaknesses in performance on a sales team. But these benchmarks need to be focused on the metrics that both the company and sales professionals see as the most important.

The goal of the sales academy is to balance the needs of both in a way that keeps learning and performance moving in a positive direction.

Critical Skills

The skills important to sales jobs were knowing the market, targeting buyers, understanding buyer needs, presenting effectively, establishing relationships and becoming a trusted advisor. Based on our data, the list represents a core set of skills that should be applicable to nearly any company’s sales training.

While these skills were the ones most universally endorsed in our research, that doesn’t necessarily mean other skills can be disregarded with impunity. Depending on the type of sales role, such as inside sales or service sales, different skills will naturally be emphasized in daily operations. A significant function of a sales academy is to bring these differences to light, upskill sales professionals appropriately based on the distinctive needs of their roles, and provide the metrics to gauge whether everything is moving in the right direction.

We all know sales is not a one-size-fits-all type of job, and an effective sales academy does not try to force it to be.