EMC Sales Talent Academy Manager Sabine Cronin talks about the successful graduation of 14 individuals from 8 countries from the inaugural EMC Sales Talent Academy.
Established in Europe in 1998, EMC is today the world’s seventh largest technology company. EMC has always had a strong sales ethic, helping the channel and partners to sell through some of the more exciting digital storage solutions on the market. EMC recognised that to continue their stellar growth they needed to develop and nurture the finest new talent from within. Enter the 2010 birth of the Sales Talent Academy.
In May 2010 the first group of 14 participants successfully graduated from the Academy, which has already developed a reputation as another key business of the Ireland Centre of Excellence.
Training Goal
The goal of this first Sales Talent Academy program set up in January 2010 was to create a recurrent 5 month training program for the purpose of developing EMEA Sales account managers for the Mid-Market and Channels. The Sales Talent Academy is a unique opportunity to build an exciting and successful sales career in the seventh largest IT company in the world.
Natural Training’s Involvement
Natural Training has been working with EMC on the prospecting and relationship development side of the program content. The brief was to provide a new, innovative training approach to sourcing new talents and skill-sets and matching them to their respective country requirements. There were natives from 8 different EMEA regions at the training, which added some challenges to the programme. Natural Training used the latest sales training techniques to speak to today’s new generation of sales people.
As always, the training was strongly grounded in behavioural change – real sales planning, goal setting, calls, meetings and presentations. Participants were free to talk and make calls in their native language, ensuring that they developed a strong sense of comfort with the new sales techniques.
Real Return on Investment
The training virtually paid for itself – the program over 5 months generated a sales pipeline of $1.9m in opportunities. Building on this success, and only two weeks later the STA graduates have already started to close deals.
STA Programme Manager Sabine Cronin wants to continue the outstanding success of the first intake with a second programme scheduled for August 2010:
“We want to discover, develop and grow new Sales Talent. Having a world class Centre of Excellence is critical to the STA program and EMC's success. And in turn, the graduates’ success in their respective country and market will be our success”.
