The Real Learning Company recently partnered with Express Scripts, Inc. (ESI) and Deluxe Financial Services to bring a new approach to leveraging the power of their sales organizations: SalesTEAM.

In this unique, experiential simulation, participants spend a day inside their own sales environment, using their company's sales process to strategize a scenario involving a tough customer selected from their actual client base. SalesTEAM is intense and challenging - and compels salespeople to prove their stuff in a wild and woolly, no-holds-barred competition among teams.

How did SalesTEAM meet the goals of two organizations with two very different needs?

Express Scripts, Inc.
Express Scripts, Inc. was searching for a consistent sales strategy and message. The company wanted to create a learning process that would involve salespeople and those supporting the sales process across the company's divisions.

ESI is a pharmacy benefits management company operating in an intense and increasingly competitive market. The company wanted to bring 150 people together in a sales meeting for the first time in two years. When ESI turned to consultant Mary Steiner for help, she found that the company's goals for the meeting included: aligning around a common ESI message, emphasizing the importance of getting to the right people for the right information in the early stages of the buying cycle, and collaborating with internal resources to ensure the most effective use of ESI time and talent. In addition, the company wanted to launch its ESI Sales University resource with a bang!

Steiner knew of a perfect tool that would meet ESI's needs. She selected The Real Learning Company's SalesTEAM and worked with Real Learning partner Lynne Hodge and program developer Philip Cooper, as well as Express Scripts' director of training and development, to bring it to life for ESI.

SalesTEAM is a high-energy simulation that builds selling strategies tailored to a company's particular markets, products, and customers. The program makes learning real by basing the simulation on one of the company's own tough customers. Teams learn how to successfully sell in a way that reflects their market, competition, sales cycles and current sales issues. Learning maps, rewards, and other tools create an intense, high-energy, competitive environment that instantly engages even the most seasoned salespeople and captivates everyone who supports the sales function.

Cooper explains, “SalesTEAM is not a generic program with a portion that may be customized. The experience is entirely customized. Participants look at their company's sales process on the learning map and then go deeply into one of their typical accounts. They spend the entire day there. At the end, they feel like they've actually spent time in the field.”

Express Scripts needed to engage three audiences: sales directors, account managers, and technical people, such as clinical pharmacists. Project Manager Cooper and his team interviewed 14 Express Scripts salespeople and used the information to seamlessly transform the SalesTEAM framework into a unique ESI experience. Cooper developed two scenarios representing real customers from ESI's commercial and managed care markets. The training director recalls, “Philip, Lynne and the team asked a lot of challenging questions that helped us shape what we were doing. They were very helpful in working with an audience that was not going to be strictly sales.”

At the meeting, the group was divided into 15 teams. The room was crackling with energy from the moment the simulation began. Beneath an audible buzz, executives were enthused, participants were bubbling, competitive spirit was high. “People were saying, 'This is the best thing I've ever been through!'” says Steiner.

Steiner has introduced SalesTEAM to many organizations and was confident that the experience would meet ESI's objectives. One of these was enabling senior executives to view sales teams in action. During the simulation, ESI sales managers coached participants who were developing their team's strategy. Not only were managers able to observe their salespeople's skills, the process also helped identify candidates who could be brought into the sales group at a later date. ESI found that the executive coaching was “one of the most valuable things about the training.”

Another benefit was giving cross-functional associates experience working together to strategize and plan a presentation. There were many “aha” moments as those outside the sales department realized they had something beneficial to contribute to the sales strategy process. Account management or clinical teams that usually wouldn't get involved in the process until farther down the line also had a chance to formulate plans right from the start.

At the end of the day, facilitator Cooper received a standing ovation. SalesTEAM sold the client on the benefit of cross-divisional learning, which “has really moved us forward in terms of accelerating the sales growth that is key to our corporate strategy.”

Deluxe Financial Services
Deluxe Financial Services, the world's largest check printer and supplier of payment solutions, was bringing 300 people together for an annual sales meeting. The VP of sales and marketing wanted to achieve five goals:

The VP also wanted the meeting to be fun - a meaningful learning experience to create memorable enthusiasm and energy. Consultant Mary Steiner knew that this menu of goals was a perfect fit with SalesTEAM.

She quickly tapped The Real Learning Company's customization team, which conducted interviews and captured each element of the Deluxe situation in a compelling scenario, augmented by engaging program materials. When the client said, “I also want this to feel like us, like live stuff,” Philip Cooper and Lynne Hodge nodded knowingly. They knew that is exactly what would happen.

SalesTEAM appealed to the Deluxe group's competitive spirit. As in all good competitions, the team with the most money wins. When teams made smart decisions about who to contact for information in the “tough client” organization, they were rewarded with money - and with good information that helped them get ahead in the simulation. Amid cheers and jeers, helium balloons indicating which team was ahead were moved from table to table as each team debriefed.

A significant benefit for Deluxe was that VPs and sales managers were able to coach participants as teams worked fast and furiously through the competition. Steiner recalls, “As coaches, Deluxe managers and VPs could directly observe how their sales, support, and marketing people behaved in a real selling environment. They could see the pressure to swim through information, use it wisely, make decisions, and get still more information - all within a restricted timeframe. This was incredibly powerful.”

Participants benefited doubly - through their own experiential learning and from focused coaching provided by managers during crucial phases of the competition.

After putting in a hard day's work, participants gave voice to the program's success with comments such as, “They're really serious about us consulting in the sales cycle,” and “I'm tired - but what fun!” The sales VP was exceptionally pleased; SalesTEAM had satisfied all of his sales meeting goals and helped set the stage for a highly successful program launch.