Adapter’s Advantage Podcast: Episode 14 Featuring Tim Riesterer
Welcome to Adapter’s Advantage: Breakthrough Moments that Lead to Success. In this episode, visionary researcher Tim Riesterer shares training tactics that make an impact from his work with over 70,000 sales people.
Riesterer, chief strategy officer at Corporate Visions, is a thought leader, speaker, author, and practitioner with more than 20 years of experience in marketing and sales management. His field-based research into the human brain reveals why we make choices, the value of curiosity, and how sellers can break through a one-size-fits-all approach to find meaning, reinforce value, and defeat the status quo.
Riesterer has dedicated his career to improving the messages that marketing teams create for the field and the conversations salespeople have with prospects and customers. He consults with some of the top companies in the world to develop, deploy and deliver customer conversations that win.
As CSO at the leading marketing and sales messaging consulting and training company in the world, Riesterer helps set company direction, develops the products to execute on that vision, produces market thought leadership, and drives business development. He’s also the co-author of Three Value Conversations, Conversations that Win the Complex Sale, and Customer Message Management.
In this interview, Riesterer shares how his career as a corporate journalist led to the field of decision science. His research reveals how sales teams can improve messaging, drive behavior change, and rethink classroom training. Listen to learn why sellers need to live the customer’s story instead of just telling theirs.
Episode 14: Defeating the Status Quo | Tim Riesterer
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“The customer lives in their story and we live in our story and we keep trying to force the customer to love our story, when we need to figure out how to live in a relevant way in theirs.” — Tim Riesterer
From This Episode
Host Mark Magnacca: “I hear companies say their average onboarding time is 9 to 12 months to ramp a sales person to the point of productivity. Does that make sense to you?”
Tim Riesterer: “No. And it shouldn’t. In this world, now that virtual is becoming in vogue because it has to, it’s vital that training isn’t like: here’s our standalone skills training, here’s our product training, and here’s our domain training, and everybody’s got to take the training in silos and then figure out how to bring them together.
“We’re seeing more sales enablement training being done situationally. This is a scenario we face in the market: here’s a message, here’s some content assets and here’s some skills to address that. We just had a client who had something change in their world around contracts and pricing. It was going to be a big deal. We helped them build some messaging, build a couple of content assets, and put people into practice sessions where they had to be fit for duty.
“We stood that up in a couple of weeks and hundreds of people went through it in a week or two as opposed to the traditional method. By getting somebody ready for that situation and then integrating the message, the content, and the skills into a relevant moment, we were able to see a lot more uptake and adoption, and we were comfortable they were going to be successful because there was a level of fit for duty attached to it.
“None of the traditional learning paths and things you describe about onboarding have anything like that. I call that “just-in-case” training. We teach them something “just in case” they’re going to use it, and we hope they remember it when it is required, as opposed to “just-in-time” training of the example I just shared with you. Something pops up and you equip and enable them for that moment. Now they’re ready to learn because they’re in some sort of deficit.
“The marketing and sales and enablement and training worlds are converging into these moments where these things happen in an integrated way, much different than traditional onboarding, which was chunks to check a box.”
About Adapter’s Advantage
Our podcast features leaders from sales, training, and industry who share their personal journeys of transformation and how they are adapting to an ever-changing environment. As your host, I’ll introduce you to some of the most interesting and inspiring people I’ve met over the last twenty years.
The conversions dive into the ups and downs of their journey. Our guests focus on inflection points—the aha moments that, in retrospect, had a critical impact on their success. These interviews will leave you with practical, real-world advice that you can apply to your life.
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