Driving Behavior Change in a World of Unreliable Managers

Sixty six days—that’s how long it takes to build better habits in a sales force, according to United Rentals’ Shelley Robins, citing a manager impact study. This fundamental training challenge is not necessarily an issue because sales managers are unreliable; it’s an issue because driving adoption in the field is an imperative.

Often times, as Robins noted, knowing how well you’re doing here comes down to answering two questions: How much are the skills being used, and how much do they help? Adoption doesn’t happen by accident, and there are five leading indicators that Robins and Tom Jones, also of United Rentals, keep in mind when assessing how they’re doing:

Behavior changes


Value articulation skills


Negotiation skills


Branch manager reinforcement efforts


Coaching and reinforcement

Here are a two tips offered by Robins and Jones for staying strong across some of these crucial adoption indictors:

Small improvements = wins. Focus on certain topics of training at a time. For example, drill down on key negotiations skills to keep your team sharp on their skills, such as setting high targets or expanding the range of reason.


Provide a proof of mastery step for certification, giving managers skills check lists they can use to ensure reps are fluent across the most important selling skills and concepts.