This report is a productivity analysis of the SPIN® Field Coaching Programme that was conducted in the Communications Division of Motorola for sales managers to improve the skills of sales reps by means of on-the-job coaching.
The Huthwaite approach comprises four stages: Content Diagnosis, Process Diagnosis, Intervention and Integration.
Content Diagnosis – finding what works best
Using Behaviour Analysis techniques that Huthwaite had developed, Motorola managers watched their people selling and picked out the behaviours that were working in successful calls.
Process Diagnosis – deciding how to implement
Huthwaite developed a wholly field-based project plan that avoided classroom training and instead capitalised on the strong sales management culture within Motorola.
Intervention – training in coaching skills
Managers were trained in coaching skills to help them monitor and develop the key skills identified by Content Diagnosis.
Integration 1 – developing successful behaviours through coaching
The coaching was designed as a three-month project. Managers met monthly with Huthwaite consultants to plan strategies for getting the maximum skill improvement from the Motorola people. During the project, managers gave their people special training materials that Huthwaite had designed to help develop those selling behaviours that worked best in a recession.
As a matter of policy, coaching effort was concentrated in the area of obtaining new business rather than developing existing clients, and this bias is reflected in the results shown in the report.
Integration 2 – measuring productivity
The final, and most important step was to assess the effect of the project in terms of increased sales productivity, and it was here that Martha Silliman was called in to plan and supervise the evaluation process.
SPIN® Project Productivity Analysis
This report is a productivity analysis of the SPIN® Selling Field Coaching Programme that was conducted in the Communications Division of Motorola for sales managers to improve the skills of sales reps by means of on-the-job coaching.
A previous analysis of the project data confirmed that key SPIN® Selling behaviours were more frequent in successful, as opposed to unsuccessful, Motorola sales success. Moreover, that work also indicated that implementation of the field coaching project increased the use of key SPIN® Selling Behaviours. However, that analysis did not address the third major question:
What is the impact of the achieved SPIN® Selling selling behaviour change on productivity?
This question is systematically investigated in the following analysis:
- Background information
This analysis was conducted to measure the links between training and sales productivity. In any such analysis, it is critically important that productivity information be obtained not only for the group receiving training, but also for comparable groups who did not receive training. For this analysis, two such comparison groups were established. - SPIN® Selling group
This group consisted of sales reps who participated in the SPIN® - Control group with SPIN® The group consisted of sales reps who did not participate in the Field Coaching Programme, but who did report to SPIN® trained manager (N=42).
- Control group with non SPIN® trained managers.
This group consisted of sales reps who did not participate in the Field Coaching Programme who reported to non-SPIN®-
- Pre-SPIN® - The three months before SPIN® training.
- During SPIN® - The three months in which the SPIN® training occurred.
- Post-SPIN® - The three months immediately following SPIN® training.
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