The Start of My Book on Sales Performance Levers

I Was Born a Poor Training Child

When I was new to the sales training field, I was fortunate to have some great mentors. They were business professionals, not training experts, and they helped instill in me a laser-focus on improving performance and proving value of my training and other performance initiatives. I’m grateful to this day for those roots and their influence.

Having said that, these leaders were clear about goals, desired outcomes and how they wanted results evaluated (what success would look like), but what they didn’t have (and knew it, to their credit), was the right formula for training and aligning performance levers. That’s where I came in.

In the early days, of course, I was still learning, too, so while I had some early success and was what I now call “directionally correct,” I still hadn’t quite figured out the magic sauce (and hadn’t coined the term “performance lever” or completely delineated my process for determining what they were and how to align them).

Well, I read a lot. Constantly. Magazines, books, text books, journals, white papers, research and whatever else I could get my hands on. I tried to track down and call or email authors and eventually talk to them. I attended conferences, events, and local meetings. I talked with people internally and externally and took people to lunch to discuss ideas with them.

Yeah, I was one of those people who actually contacted the authors of articles and books. Sometimes people loved hearing from me and I learned a ton. Sometimes, I think because I asked a lot of direct and hard questions, they weren’t so fond of me. (I like to think I was always curious but kind, and hope I was, but I also know how I can get when I’m “digging in.”) And, of course, sometimes, the blowhard marketing and chest-puffing from an article just fell apart under the scrutiny. I tried to part gracefully and quickly from those interactions without deflating anyone. It was sad how often I found Swiss cheese holes, though.

I learned a lot and had a blast during those early years, but I did have one frustration.

The people who seemed to be the real experts, never really quite shared all the ingredients in the magic sauce.

Oh sure, they shared stuff. They told stories and talked at some level about their work and processes. Many had pretty slides and some shared data, but it was always hard to get real step-action details or a template to follow to replicate their work.

It wasn’t that I was incapable of taking concepts and ideas and shaping them and implementing them on my own – in fact, that’s exactly what I did. But more detail, or some tools, or spreadsheets, or clearer process steps, or something concrete, would have been more helpful to me.

The Internet and World Wide Web weren’t so worldly or wide in 1986 when I first became a sales manager (or at least I didn’t know about it), nor was I “plugged in” in 1991 when I officially entered the training profession by title. Eventually, though, I found the WWW around 1995-ish and in 1997 participated in various listserv discussion groups, most notably the TRDEV-L group that was run by Bill Rothwell and his grad students from Penn State. I had a blast on TRDEV-L and made a lot of great connections. It was like a super-charged LinkedIn discussion group, with so many power players from the training world.

Internet content exploded soon after and eventually social media was born. But now, while I’m still learning daily and enjoying all of the content and expertise that is so readily available, I’m probably sharing as much or more than I absorb. Although it hasn’t been until recently that I decided to blog, and right now, I’m only doing that casually, flirting with an occasional post (or flirting with disaster – not sure which).

Eventually, through these experiences, I figured some things out.

• For one, some people couldn’t share their system because they didn’t really have one. They did a bunch of things, got lucky, and something worked. Then they started talking about it, without bothering to analyze why it worked (or whether their actions were actually responsible for the results) and if it was replicable. 
• Others, like the folks I ran into through ISPI (International Society for Performance Improvement), seemed to have a much more scientific, replicable approach (although sometimes I felt like I needed a Ph.D. to interpret their writings or have a conversation with [some of] them). 
• I also learned a lot from ASTD (American Society for Training and Development). It took them longer to get into the real performance world content, but now they offer some great stuff that is more easily absorbed and used, in my opinion. 
• I also figured out that the reason details were often missing from speakers’ content and authors’ work, was that many of the practical experts were consultants, and they never shared their full methodology for obvious business reasons. 
• Lastly, I also figured out that the work is similar wherever you do it, but the real magic is in how you do it – how you apply the work – the little things… which are so difficult to talk about in excrutiating detail, where one company’s pertinent example may not apply at all to another company, industry, or target market (for example, what applies at a B2B company may not always apply at a B2C one).

Yes, I Actually Have a Point

This is the start of my new book on Sales Performance Levers.

• With details (probably too many).
• With examples (they won’t fit every business).
• With tools (maybe the wrong ones for your situation).
• Maybe with a spreadsheet (with my favorite colors).
• And with a touch of personality (perhaps known in some circles as “smart-@$$” or by the more cultured as “flair”).

The Ginsu Knife

I can say that with confidence because I have done it in multiple industries (and both B2C & B2B) and know the concepts and processes are company- and industry-agnostic.

If you decide to come along for the ride, I hope you enjoy it, poke holes, share ideas, and comment freely. I’m not selling anything here (well, for full disclosure, I may eventually sell the book or an e-book, we’ll see what happens)…  but I’m employed and plan to stay that way. (Which also means I will not be sharing anything I learn from my current analysis which could be considered “competitive differentiation” or intellectual property of my employer, without clearance from them first.)

Hopefully we can have some great and open discussions, and hopefully, we can help each other learn and grow.

Connect with me:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekunkle 
http://twitter.com/mike_kunkle

Permalink

| Leave a comment  »