CNS launches Sales Academy

With over 50 field based sales staff this has demanded a very structured and thorough approach to professional development. After evaluation of a number of alternative approaches CNS has created its own customized sales training program called Sales Academy.

The CNS story

"traditionally we relied on the sales accreditation programs avalable from the OEM's we sell such as cisco and hp to deliver our training. this worked when we had a predominately technical sales team. however with solutions and services the requirement for technical design and positioning has moved to a back office requirement. the skill sets required of the filed based sales teams is now more independent, advisory and collaborative. such training is not availble from the OEM's"

says Brian Perrins, Senior Marketing Manager at CNS.

"It was clear that a radical approach was required within CNS sales to meet the demands of our new go to market model. We needed something that was customized for our unique requirements and something that was tangible and drove the behaviors we wanted to see. The sales team is a very expensive and critical asset for any organization so we could not afford to do anything that was not 100% right for CNS".

The result was the creation of the CNS sales academy. The academy is responsible for the development of all sales training, ranging from the creation of the courseware through to marking test papers and administrating the program.

Individual performance within the program is so important that the 2009 sales commission plan has a variable that is based not just on attending training but passing the written tests. We have made sales training high stakes.

"Every salesperson has been assigned a quarterly number of PDP (professional development program) points. Points are awarded based on the type of training (instructor led, web based, etc), the level of training (advanced, introduction, etc) and the duration.

Some training is mandatory and some is down to the individual to select based on their personal needs. We have covered both soft skills and hard skills".

The program is in its first 2009 quarter and over 540 seats are available in this period for sales staff to book. Courses run in both the Abu Dhabi and Dubai offices. Q1 focus is services and Q2 will be technology.

"The pass rates we are seeing are about 85%. We have considered the fact that English is not everybody's first language and that >50% of the sales team is not from an ICT background" adds Perrins. "We have used case studies as way to get the points across and to help people to apply the theory which has helped tremendously".