Case: DEVELOPING A TRAINING PROGRAM AT DOCUSCAN

Background

Docuscan is a small independently owned regional document imaging company located in the Southern United States. The company converts paper files, X-rays, microfilm, microfiche and other media to electronic documents to help companies more effectively and efficiently run their business. The company has held its own in the fragmented imaging market having steadily increased sales each year of its existence. Although the company has only been in existence for about eight years, it has likewise steadily grown its salesforce to 15 members. Each salesperson brings his or her own unique set of skills and talents to the company, as Docuscan has never before offered any formal sales training, that is, until now.

Current Situation

It was a Friday afternoon when Chip Dipston, VP of sales at Docuscan, met with company owner Sharon Cooper to discuss plans for taking the salesforce to the next level. Sharon had been pressuring Chip to improve sales significantly this year. Chip felt confident that his salespeople were doing all they could. In his opinion, members of his sales team appeared highly motivated and hard working. Perhaps, he thought, they could hire a couple more salespeople. However, when he had mentioned this to Sharon a few weeks earlier she seemed lukewarm to the idea. Thus, Chip decided he would propose to Sharon the idea of conducting formal salesforce training. He believed this could help make his sales team stronger and ultimately increase company sales. Sharon was excited about the idea. Prior to starting Docuscan she had worked in sales at Xerox and had undergone extensive sales training. She felt it was instrumental in helping her develop as a salesperson. Moreover, after leaving Xerox she had developed some sales training programs herself when she served as VP of sales at a small office supply company. Therefore, Sharon accepted Chip's proposal to develop sales training and sent him on his way.

Chip was excited. Training the salesforce would surely help his team take the next step. The question was, what exactly should he teach his salespeople? Given Sharon's push to increase sales, Chip decided that if he could improve the prospecting skills of his salesforce, they could obtain more customers, and thus increase sales. Since the market is very competitive, Chip felt that it may be useful to increase the competitive knowledge of his salesforce. In addition, Chip felt that if his salespeople better understood their customers they surely would do a better job of selling. Chip also thought that his salespeople should be very customer-oriented and treat customers fairly. In doing so, it was important that salespeople closely adhered to the company's code of ethics. Therefore Chip decided that he also would conduct training in sales ethics. Finally, Chip was a big believer in being organized, as he felt this helped one to work more efficiently and effectively. Thus, he surmised that his salespeople could use training in time and territory management.

Having determined the areas in which he wanted to train the salesforce, Chip set some goals he hoped to achieve by implementing his training: (1) find more customers; (2) increase sales and profit; (3) improve teamwork and cooperative efforts; (4) improve salespeople's customer orientation; and (5) develop a smarter salesforce. If my training can accomplish these goals, Chip thought, then sales will increase and Sharon will get off my back.

Next, some details concerning the training needed to be worked out. Who would do the training? Chip considered hiring an external trainer but decided to do it himself. He felt that his intimate knowledge of the industry, his company and his sales team put him in the best position to serve as trainer. Another question involved how to conduct the training. Chip had been doing a lot of reading lately on the benefits of virtual training. He felt this would be a good way to train his busy salesforce, as it could save both time and money. He could host an interactive synchronous webinar that his salesforce could attend via a computer and an Internet connection. He was familiar with a company called WebEx that provides services for conducting virtual meetings. Having participated as an attendee in a webinar a few years ago that used WebEx he decided to go with them. Since Chip had several topics to cover, he determined that he would host a series of webinars, one on each topic for the next five Tusedays from 10:00-11:30 a.m. Having hammered out these details, Chip went about designing the material that would be covered in each session.

Once the training finally got underway, Chip began to experience some problems. He found some salespeople joining the sessions late or others not at all. Many of his salespeople were not familiar with the technology, having never participated in a webinar. Several of them had no idea how to "raise their hand" to ask a question, participated in polls or use the online whiteboard. As a result, they became confused, found it difficult to keep up, and failed to learn. Some of the sessions involved no interaction on the part of salespeople. In these sessions, some salespeople had a difficult time focusing had became disengaged. Many felt as though they simply could have read the material on their own time.

Upon concluding the training session, Chip wondered whether the training would pay off. Having heard some comments from his salespeople, he realized that were some difficulties. But that's not uncommon in training, he thought. As he reflected on the training, he was just sure that his salespeople received some value. But only time would tell, he concluded. Chip then began to prepare his report that detailed the training program and its impact on the salesforce for his meeting with Sharon later in the week.

Questions

1. If you were in charge of the training for this salesforce, explain how you would have gone about designing a training program.

2. Do you believe that the training program outlined in this case will achieve its objectives? Explain.

3. What kind of reactions might Chip expect from his salespeople after implementing his training program?