One of the key ways the Western Union (WU) Learning and Development team assists the global payment services organization is to focus on sales training to increase top-line growth. To that end, WU’s CEO and CHRO asked the team to work with sales managers and front-line associates from varied regions and business lines to create an enterprise-wide Sales Force Excellence program.
The global team met in WU’s San Francisco office for a week to review the current state and devise the enterprise-wide sales approach. While it uncovered many opportunities to add value, the executive sponsors challenged the team to come up with two “quick-win” recommendations to ensure business impact in 2014. In response, the L&D team recommended creating a standard consultative sales and strategic sales methodology with sustainment activities.
Program Details
L&D partnered with two best-in-class external partners to tailor the training content to global business realities and worked with regional sales directors and HR business partners to select 200 high-performing and potential sales force members to participate in this program. The team then delivered 10 workshops in every region in an aggressive five-week span.
In WU’s industry, the value or financial return of any investment can only be actualized by the application of the learning after a development experience. This is where the sustainment strategy was critical. L&D focused on three core areas:
- Getting all 12 task force members certified as facilitators and coaches in both training methodologies. L&D knew that the participants would need ongoing coaching. Plus, having these individuals certified to deliver the training would significantly reduce training delivery costs moving forward.
- Holding monthly WebEx sessions with all participants, which reinforced their learning and also gave them the opportunity to interact with internal and external sales leaders.
- Creating an online sales force academy portal with more than 200 learning objects aligned to sales for competencies from the initial face to face trainings.
To evaluate program impact, L&D devised a gamified “learn to earn” initiative in which sales correlated with employee learnings were nominated to be recognized. At the end of each quarter, three people in each region receive a significant bonus and are publicly recognized at a company-wide meeting. This program also includes leader boards and other social media tools to drive visibility and adoption.
Results
Through “learn to earn,” Western Union found a correlation of $16.5 million of increased revenues, delivering an ROI in excess of 20 times the investment. This helped evolve the program design and subsequent investment.
Some 95 percent of participants indicated they are still using skills they learned, resulting in increased sales. And 98 percent believe WU should increase its investment in Sales Excellence.
