As companies move away from solution selling in favor of the Challenger Sale how does a sales manager insure that their sales reps are conducting the “commercial teaching pitch” correctly? The answer could be as simple as “observation.”
Does the sales rep progress through the six steps of the world class teaching pitch? Does the sales rep conduct each stage correctly? Does he/she avoid sales pitches of the past? xAPI can can capture answers to these questions.
xAPI is a technology that allows for recording learning and performance activities. The results are fed into a learning record store (LRS) which can then provide critical information to sales leadership. The process is not confined to a Learning Management System.
How it would work
The sales manager accompanies the sales rep on the sales call and will have an easy-to-use mobile app to record how the sale rep performed during the ‘world class commercial teaching pitch.' The app is an observation checklist.
Designing the app
Creating the application using Twitter Bootstrap insures a good mobile experience. Knowledge of HTML5, CSS3, javascript and jQuery will also be essential in the design of the app.
Developing the xAPI observation checklist
Starting with a bootstrap shell embodied in an HTML5 page the first thing to construct is a way for the sales manager to select the salesperson that is being evaluated. A series of drop down boxes contain questions for each step of the world class teaching pitch. The first step is called “The Warmer” so this step might have three or four options that the sales manager can record the proficiency that the sales rep has with this step. And finally, a Submit button is provided in order to signal completion. See the next two graphics for an idea of what this app and its drop down menus looks like. Note: This is an abbreviated representation. There are six steps in the 'World Class Teaching" pitch so there would actually be many more drop down menus than shown here.
The rest of the form is just that simple with drop downs for each of the other five steps.
Instrumenting for xAPI
When the sales manager makes all the necessary selections and clicks Submit, this performance information is transferred to the Learning Record Store. I use RISC LRS which always works and makes programmatically sending and receiving statements a snap. There is also a RISC LRS Viewer to use if I just wish to peruse records to see how things are going.
The following description is semi technical so if you prefer to skip it, jump to the section entitled “Why sales leadership should love xAPI.”
Technical description
In the same HTML file that holds the drop down choices, reference xapiwrapper.min.js. This file is available on Github in the dist folder. You should also reference a javascript file that holds the code to process the information. Mine is called init.js.
When the data is submitted, it then gets processed in the init.js file. I won’t go through each line here but for the inquisitive, here is what it looks like.
After the data has been massaged a bit with the first group of code, the all important xAPI related code follows. This is what actually sends the statements to the LRS.
After that, the user is returned to the form and all fields have been cleared. To see how the records display in the LRS I can use the RISC LRS viewer. Below is how the statements appear.
Why Sales Leadership should love xAPI
More and more companies are investing in the Challenger Sale. Now, real-world data allows them to see who is practicing it correctly. Later, this performance data can be correlated with actual sales data for the same sales rep. Are the sales reps that are living the world class teaching pitch correctly also the ones that meet or surpass their quarterly sales targets? Now there is data to help answer that question.
John Menken is a learning professional excited about the boundless possibilities with xAPI. Email John if you would like to talk more about xAPI and what it could mean for your business.
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