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Richardson

How to EnterCompany: Richardson, Philadelphia, PA
Company Description: Richardson (www.richardson.com) is a leading sales training company. We accelerate the productivity of salespeople by ensuring they have the skills, strategies, and processes to achieve their objectives. Utilizing our proprietary customization process and comprehensive sales curriculum, coaching, and consulting, we help develop the critical skills sales organizations need to win.
Nomination Category: Solution Provider Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Consulting Practice of the Year

Nomination Title: Richardson's Sales Enablement Practice

Tell the story about what this nominated organization has achieved since the beginning of July 2011 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Richardson's consulting practice has been transformed over the past 12 months from what had essentially been the Richardson Sales Readiness Practice to what is now called Sales Enablement.

More than a new name, the Practice has undergone a strategic change. Its original focus had been largely in two areas:

1) talent, with predictive testing and diagnostic technologies to help clients select, assess, and develop their sales talent, and

2) the sales process, with best-in-class practices and methodologies, leading indicators of success, and pipeline management.

Today, the Sales Enablement Practice has a broader focus: helping sales organizations initiative, lead, and sustain change to execute their sales strategy. It addresses both people and technology. The Practice created a Leadership Discipline Framework, with workshops such as Leading Change Effectively, and key tools such as WorkFlow Apps and the QuickCheck™ email-based mobile reinforcement program.

In mid-2011, the Practice realized that sustainment – embedding the desired skills and processes into the workstream – was something that sales leaders needed to think about before any training began. Leaders themselves needed to play a role in reinforcing training, and the sales organization needed better tools to embed learning into the daily workflow.

The Practice made two decisions. First, sustainment would be discussed early on with clients so they would understand how Richardson could help them leverage their investment in sales training, touching on process, metrics, and the talent lifecycle. Second, it would become an advocate for change management, both as a concept and the role of leaders throughout the organization. This last part is particularly important, as sales leaders agreed they had a role to play, but kept asking: “How?”

The Leading Change Effectively workshop steps leaders through three levels of change: envisioning the change, owning the change, and initiating the change. Leaders learn to communicate the connections linking overall corporate strategy, sales organization goals, specific initiatives, and daily responsibilities. They learn how to verify the degree of change taking place using behavior-based, open-ended questions to improve the quality of their dialogues with their direct reports. They leave able to take immediate action to begin implementing change with their direct reports.

The outcome has been more active engagement by leaders in training, coaching, and sustainment. With the Leadership Discipline Framework, there is more hands-on engagement of leaders, up through the CxO level, and calls to action by leaders for their teams. They’re more structured in their role as a change leader and are demanding accountability and results from their investment in training.

Early client feedback carries a common theme. They now have a discipline and structure to affect change through their salesforce. One large technology client cites better alignment with the account plan for large strategic accounts from upper management through account execs. All levels share the same information, and sales managers and senior sales managers are confident about asking the right questions because they have greater visibility into these accounts.

For most clients, change management sits outside the sales organization; now that capability is coming inside.

 

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:

Harry Dunklin is Richardson Senior Vice President, Sales Enablement. He joined the company in 2010 as head of the Sales Readiness practice; he then expanded its strategic focus and capabilities to become the newly established Sales Enablement practice. From 2001-2010, he was founder and principal of Skillmeasure, Inc., where he developed and launched skills diagnostic tools across multiple industries. From 1997-2001, he was corporate vice president for one of the largest U.S training companies. From 1990-1997, he was a senior partner in a process consulting firm, leading process design and productivity enhancement efforts for major corporate clients.