CONTEXT

This franchise organization has 1,900 franchisees across the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The field sales team supports franchisees with about 100 business managers and 20 field trainers. 

Business practices were not uniform across the organization, and franchisees were not receiving consistent messages and coaching in regard to business processes, money management, sales strategies.

With inconsistencies abound from sales management and training, franchisee success was at risk. 

WATCHOUT 

A training solution could help align the field, but a needs assessment was conducted. The results determined that training could solve knowledge gaps and promote transparency around best practices, but performance dynamics and communication gaps were also at play. 

NEEDS ASSESSMENT

The needs assessment revealed that

1. Few sales managers and trainers had the same onboarding training experience.

2. As the organization targeted streamlined processes and grew product lines, there was no training funnel in place to teach the sales team about changes to processes or products. 

BUSINESS SYSTEM COMPLIANCE eLEARNING PROGRAM

A module-based eLearning training program would 

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1. align the sales team members on the business system fundamentals

2. demonstrate the value of each fundamental (in time and money concepts)

3. foster an exchange of best practices among the learning community

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TRAINING PROGRAM FEATURES

• 12 modules per year

  •  one topic each month

  • micro-learning for on-the-go team members

• Repository of training materials and standard procedures

• Frequent knowledge checks

• Discussion boards

• Gamification

• Leaderboard for engagement

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TOOLS

• Microsoft Office

• Prezi

• Microsoft Forms

• Blackboard (LMS)

• LinkedIn Learning

• Training Playbook

• Expert panelists podcast

• Infographics

• Digital promotions organizers

REACTION

By the end of the first year, the program had achieved 97% on-time completion, signifying strong engagement. 

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LEARNING

• Closed some topic knowledge gaps by as much as 40% 

• Average knowledge gap improvement was 28% across all modules

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BEHAVIOR

​This program initiated a culture change. At first, there was some resistance to the additional burden eLearning placed on workloads, but as the program continued, sales managers and trainers became more confident in their strategies and demonstrated improved performance. 

RESULTS

•  Performance review meetings of sales managers and trainers became more structured as a result of the focus imparted by the standards trained in the program.

• Franchisees benefited from receiving a more consistent message from sales leaders, increasing their buy-in to processes.