This article comes from Sr. Director of Sales & Field Enablement at Zixi, Eric Mingorance’s talk, ‘Begin with the end in mind’, at our 2023 New York Sales Enablement Summit.

Check out the full event replay in the membership dashboard.

We often think of a journey as one step at a time, or progress as linear, but I want to rework this with a radical but effective concept: beginning with the end in mind.

As a sales enablement leader with a passion for improvement and a penchant for problem-solving, I'm always looking for ways to shake things up and create more impactful strategies.

The question is:

How do we go beyond simply 'delivering' training to actually ensuring it aligns with our business outcomes?

I’d like to share my thoughts on this very topic, distilling some of my key insights to help you flip your approach to sales enablement on its head.

We'll base our discussion in the Kirkpatrick model and explore how we can effectively reorient our strategies to focus on results.

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From setting clear, tangible goals to ensuring alignment across all teams, and implementing a robust, continuous feedback loop, we'll explore all the crucial steps that you can implement in your organization to drive real results.

So, without further ado, let's kickstart our journey of 'beginning at the end.' 🛣️

  • Reinforcement: Our halftime pep talk
  • Flipping the Kirkpatrick model
  • Changing behaviors
  • Final thoughts

Reinforcement: Our halftime pep talk

We've all been there: the halfway mark, where you pause, reassess, and brace yourself for the sprint to the finish line, I like to think of it like the Super Bowl halftime.

When teams huddle in the locker room, you don’t suddenly announce a brand-new change in strategy, you focus on reinforcement - reminding the team of the groundwork already laid and boosting their motivation.

That's how I want you to think of this enablement training approach. We're not reinventing the wheel. Instead, we’re revisiting and reinforcing things you already know, breathing new life into them, and gearing up for the next big push. 💪

Flipping the Kirkpatrick model

To begin with the end in mind, we need to revisit an old favorite in training methodology: the Kirkpatrick model.

But we're going to flip it, rearranging the four levels to align better with our KPIs to help us focus on changing behavior and establishing clear outcome objectives or performance goals. 🔄