Sales Partnerships, Inc. - Sales Director of the Year

Company: Sales Partnerships, Inc., Broomfield, CO
Company Description: Sales Partnerships, Inc. is the premier direct sales outsourcing company in the world, offering branded representation that delivers rapid revenue lift for the most influential B2B firms in the world. Whether it's brand activation, customer acquisition, or retention, SPI is the leader in providing scalable and proven solutions to the Fortune 500.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Director of the Year

Nomination Title: Jeffrey Valentine, Director of Sales and Training

Jeffrey Valentine is Director of Sales and Training at Sales Partnerships, Inc (SPI), which provides field-based turn-key sales outsourcing, contract sales, and brand engagement services for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies throughout North America.

2020 presented unprecedented challenges for Jeff, a former multi-time Stevie award winner. Prior to COVID-19, SPI was well on track to exceed sales targets. Then, a sudden nationwide shutdown to slow the spread meant that most field activity came to an abrupt halt. Once markets began to re-open, Jeff was tasked with leading the sales and training team through a rapid onboarding and deployment process in order to make up for lost ground. Even after re-entering the field, markets opened and closed continuously, which meant that we also had to constantly hire and train new reps depending on which territories became safe enough to enter.

To enable SPI’s rapid training and field deployment during COVID-19 -- which allowed us to operate -- Jeff led a new training model that not only could be completed remotely (previous training was always conducted in-person on-site) but that would also facilitate speedy, efficient onboarding and training and result in consistent high performance across the organization.

Outline the nominee's achievements since July 1 2019 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):

Approximately 90% of our clients (for example, one of the three major financial institutions in the US), were unable to make target in 2020 because of COVID-19 restrictions. SPI not only met our quota, we exceeded it. For a field organization to exceed quota during a pandemic when face-to-face interactions are either disallowed or highly discouraged, this is no small feat. Our success in 2020, despite the crisis conditions, is in large part due to the efforts of Jeff Valentine to develop a fast, yet highly effective model for training and coaching our sales reps so we could rapidly deploy personnel into the field when conditions were safe and also have the assurance that they were operating at peak performance levels every day.

To accomplish this, Jeff launched SPI’s new “flip classroom” training model across the entire organization, which not only enabled us to train and coach sales reps remotely and on demand, but also significantly increased the speed and efficacy of our training.

This new approach to training is a type of fully interactive, blended learning environment that focuses on employee engagement and active learning. This includes things like:

-active discussions
-learn-at-your-own-pace instruction
-live coaching
-Interactive videos
-group activities
-interactive quizzes
-role plays
-real-world exercises
and simulations

Jeff’s model made training and coaching reflect real-world experiences, enabling employees to more easily absorb the information and apply it to their own jobs. While not a widespread approach to training (yet), SPI is considered a pioneer in the flip classroom model.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

Attached is a case study on the Flip Classroom and the link to the flip classroom model for SPI that Jeff developed.

Attached is a presentation on the SPI Gives initiative, which Jeff helped to organize and manage. SPI staff members across 47 states volunteered more than 40,000 hours in 2020 helping those in need during the pandemic.

We also included a video of Jeff’s former Steview award acceptance speech as evidence of his strong history of high performance and leadership in our industry.

We also include a link to his LinkedIn profile detailing accomplishments/certifications. Most notably, Jeff is a long-time member of the Association for Talent Development and has many certifications in the following areas: Adult Learning; Designing Virtual Training; Instructional Design; Training Cert.; Change Management; and Creating Leadership Development Programs Cert. He holds a Bachelors in Business Management, a Minor in Education, and a Minor in Outdoor Leadership and Management.

Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the nominee's past performance (up to 250 words):

Because of Jeff’s implementation of the flip classroom model of training and coaching, we were able to accomplish the following results… during a pandemic:

-Reduce ramp-up time for new hires to meet quota by 25%
-Saved our client more than a $1 million in training
-Reduce overall training costs by more than 80%
-Reduce training costs by $2,000 per hire while hiring more than 250 people in a matter of months
-More than $500,000 in savings just in the second half of 2020
-Significant increase in training time and overall performance after receiving the training
-Increased employee satisfaction and engagement with training

The flip classroom sales training and coaching model that Jeff implemented transformed SPI’s approach to training from top to bottom and had significant, wide-reaching impacts across the entire organization. In short, this new program allowed us to achieve:

1) faster results with our training
2) improved overall engagement with the training and subsequent employee performance and 3) a significant reduction in overall training costs.

Previously relegated to academic settings, SPI is now one of the few nationwide BPO sales organizations that offer this unique type of flip classroom training, which we hope will become widespread across the sales industry soon as more organization learn about its cost effectiveness, efficiency, and performance-enhancing capabilities, not to mention the ability to conduct all trainings in a remote environment.