Aptive Environmental’s seasonal direct-to-home sales force is responsible for generating most of the pest control services company’s revenue. This sales force is composed entirely of commission-based 1099R sales representatives who sell the bulk of Aptive’s accounts from April to September every year. Through the “off season” (October to April), Sales leaders spend their time recruiting new Sales representatives and solidifying experienced representatives to sell door-to-door the following summer.
The largest group of Aptive’s Sales leaders is its first-tier Sales team leaders. These team leaders are responsible for recruiting their own teams of representatives, and ensuring they have enough representatives recruited to meet their regional sales goals for their assigned summer areas. Historically, Aptive’s upper Sales leadership (divisionals through Sales presidents) were individually responsible for providing their team leaders with the necessary training for their success in conjunction with some monthly, company-wide sales meetings. In 2022, Sales leadership decided to unify and elevate the training experience for team leaders further, creating a two-part Sales Team Leader Training.
Program Details
The two part of the Sales Team Leader Training program are:
Part 1: An asynchronous 12-lesson program titled, “Rally,” was created to teach team leaders the principles of effective recruiting for door-to-door seasonal sales, a program that is unique in this area. The production of this program involved more than 20 interviews and discovery sessions with upper Sales leadership and also includes eight in-house-produced videos of Aptive Sales leaders demonstrating recruiting techniques. These courses were assigned in four groups of three lessons, and team leaders were required to complete them as part of the qualifications for their team leader bonuses.
Part 2: The president of Sales partnered with Learning and Development (L&D) to elevate the monthly team leader meeting. From September through April, Sales leadership hosts a required meeting for all team leaders. Team leaders must attend these meetings either in person or virtually to qualify for their team leader bonuses. Over eight monthly meetings between September 2022 and April 2023, the L&D team created training content and materials in the forms of facilitator decks, worksheets and handouts, interactive real-time quizzes, and post-experience surveys that:
- Reinforced the content taught in the 12 Rally courses
- Provided timely instruction on topics such as leadership principles, cross-functional collaboration, dozens of sales techniques, best practices for one-on-one training for new sales representatives, and the administrative requirements needed for the proper onboarding and licensure of sales representatives
Participation in both of these programs totaled an average of 230 team leaders. Regional Sales managers meet multiple times a month with their team leaders to reinforce and retrain on topics and concepts presented in both Rally and in the monthly team leader meetings. Long-term reinforcement comes via the delivery of 30 days of sales tactics and techniques through asynchronous, video-based program Momentum. This program is launched every year in May for all sales representatives of all levels.
Results
The average contract value increased 38 percent from 2022 to 2023. And the sales reps recruited to sales reps with a sale conversion percentage rose from 40.2 percent in 2022 to 40.8 percent in 2023.
