Joint fieldwork is where you and your rep make sales calls together. Sales reps benefit and learn from your knowledge and experience, but they’re not yet working without a network, so to speak.

The problem most sales managers have when doing joint fieldwork is that they end up taking over the call entirely. Some even forget that the seller is in the room! This does nothing to train or develop the sales rep. The real purpose of doing joint fieldwork today is so your sales rep won’t need you on sales calls in the future.

More specifically, developing a skill in a sales rep through joint fieldwork is a five-step process:

1. Skill Identification – You must first identify the skill you need to develop in your sales rep. Examples include phone prospecting, fact finding, live demos, etc.

2. Training stage: you must teach the skill, its purpose and how to perform it correctly. This may require multiple training sessions to complete.

3. Sales Rep Observation Stage – This is where the sales rep watches you perform the skill with customers in the field. Essentially, you’re showing them how to do it. Again, this may require more than one session to complete.

4. Manager Observation Stage: Once they’ve seen the skill performed often enough, it’s time for them to try it out for themselves. In this stage, the sales rep begins to practice the skill while he watches. For example, he can listen while they make prospecting calls on the phone or join them on a call when they present a proposal to a client. At this stage, he should provide feedback by reinforcing correct behavior and correcting incorrect behavior. After several joint calls, this feedback will allow the sales rep to hone her skill until she becomes independent.

5. Training Stage – Once you’ve observed the sales rep’s ability to perform the skill correctly, you need to motivate and train them to use it repeatedly. Development is not complete until the proper use of the skill is an internalized habit that is performed unconsciously. Again, this stage occurs over multiple calls and sometimes over an extended period of time. In fact, some managers say that the training stage is never really over.

Remember, the goal is to push the baby bird out of the nest, so to speak. However, he will never be able to take his first solo flight if he is only allowed to fly on your back.

Love higher!