Sales Awards Blog

MarketBridge of Bethesda, Maryland, USA, received the Gold Stevie® Award for Best Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year in the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world's top business awards for contact center, customer service, business development, and sales professionals. (The early-bird deadline for the 2013 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service is October 10. If you haven't already done so, you can request your entry kit here.) Here we look at what made their training program outstanding.

MarketBridge, in partnership with Saks Fifth Avenue and MasterCard Worldwide, won a Gold Stevie Award for its multifaceted and interactive training program for Saks Fifth Avenue Stores. This training focused on SAKSFIRST, Saks Fifth Avenue's exclusive loyalty program, and the Saks Fifth Avenue World Elite MasterCard® card, a premier co-branded credit card offering tied in with Saks Fifth Avenue's loyalty program.

"We are honored to receive this award and celebrate our success with Saks Fifth Avenue and MasterCard, two preeminent brands in their industries and valued partners," stated Rebecca Johns, Vice President at MarketBridge when she and the team were in Las Vegas in February 2012 to collect the trophy.

Background Story
In 2006, MasterCard partnered with Saks Fifth Avenue to launch the Saks Fifth Avenue World Elite MasterCard, with features and benefits designed for the more affluent consumer, in all Saks Fifth Avenue Stores nationwide.

MarketBridge was engaged to build a sales training and coaching program for this co-brand card which would primarily help drive new cardmember acquisitions, but also solve key issues that arose during initial product roll-
out.

Flexible Approach
This training program was delivered to all Saks Fifth Avenue stores through a variety of coverage approaches, including in-store classroom trainings, on-the-job simulations, and long distance support. This flexible training and coaching model allowed for modified versions of the program to fit the unique needs of individual stores, departments, and store associates. 

1. Territory Support:
The first coverage model type, “Territory Support,” included regularly scheduled visits from an Account Executive to train, coach, and incent the store management and employees.

2. Accelerator Support:
Next, “Accelerator Support” involved a 1-2 day credit event that included training, strategic credit planning, one-on-one sales coaching, and incentives
for top performers.

3. Air Cover Support:
Finally, the third coverage model was “Air Cover Support”, which did not feature any regular Account Executive visits, but rather on-going support through distance learning, mailed materials, and interactive online tools.

Making Training Fun
Through its in-store visits, MarketBridge conducted fun and interactive training classes, during which the store associates were taught about credit, helped to achieve objectives, and encouraged to promote the co-brand to their customers.

Changing Behavior
Post-training—regardless of module used, additional training tools and reinforcement materials such as takeaways, quick tips, fun facts, and games— helped to ensure that the learning process was effective, that the information was retained, and, above all, that behavior changed.

Positive Results
In the first three fiscal months of 2011 MarketBridge was able to improve credit performance year-over-year, while reenergizing Associates and increasing program participation.

In an industry clouded by the current economic downturn, these results were substantial. Furthermore, from a qualitative perspective, overall program feedback from store associates and management alike was highly positive.

About the MarketBridge Team

Becky Johns, Vice President, Marketing Services Practice
Becky Johns works with clients to improve marketing and sales productivity by developing and executing integrated data-driven marketing and sales strategies. At MarketBridge her experience centers primarily on building brand loyalty through customer acquisition, engagement, and retention programs and developing online and social media communities. In addition, she has expertise in enabling sales teams through innovative training and sales readiness and enablement programs. In her 7 years with MarketBridge, she has managed accounts and initiatives across the healthcare, retail, financial services and high tech industries. Most recently, Becky led her teams to win a Gold Stevie Award for 2012 Sales Training Program of the Year, and the 2011 Marketing Innovation Award for Customer Retention and Loyalty held by Merkle and the CMO Council.

Prior to MarketBridge, Becky’s background in marketing and advertising included client and agency positions working in both B2B and B2C engagements.

Courtney Milliken, Program Manager
Courtney is a Program Manager with MarketBridge. Most prominently, she is responsible for leading the deployment and measurement of sales enablement and digital customer relationship programs for clients.

About MarketBridge:
MarketBridge is a leading global provider of technology-enabled sales and marketing solutions for Fortune 1000 and emerging-growth companies. The firm offers three core methodologies: MarketBlueprint™ for go-to-market strategy and resource planning, RevenueEngines™ for demand generation and sales enablement and DemandAnalytics™ for sales and marketing reporting and analytics.  For over 20 years and 1,000 client engagements, MarketBridge has helped CEOs and senior Marketing and Sales leadership create scalable revenue growth.  Find us on the web at www.market-bridge.comand on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MarketBridge.

MarketBridge won the Gold Stevie® Award for Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year in the 2012 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world's top honors for sales, call center, and customer service professionals. Here we look at how the sales awards winner's training efforts directly led to higher employee performance.

In 2010, sales award winner, MarketBridge, was tasked with building a sales training and coaching program by MasterCard and Saks Fifth Avenue to help promote their joint card, the Saks Fifth  Avenue World Elite MasterCard. Offered in all Saks Fifth Avenue stores nationwide, the card is complete with features and benefits designed for the upper-affluent consumer market segment.

MarketBridge was primarily charged with helping to drive new card member acquisitions, but also to solve key issues that arose during initial product roll-out including: an unbalanced and incomplete card launch, knowledge gaps among store associates as well as limited, complicated, and non-actionable training materials.

Using best sales practices, MarketBridge developed a flexible training and coaching model that allowed for modified versions of their program to fit the unique needs of regions, individual stores, departments, and store associates. MarketBridge had three training modules:

1. Territory Support, which included regularly scheduled visits from an Account Executive to train, coach and, incent the store management and employees. 
2. Accelerator Support, which involved a 1-2 day credit event that included training, strategic credit planning, one-on-one sales coaching and, incentives, like vacations for top performers.
3. Air Cover Support, which did not feature any regular Account Executive visits, but rather on-going support through distance learning and mailed materials.

Through in-store visits, MarketBridge conducted fun and interactive training classes, during which associates:

• Were taught about credit,
• Helped to overcome objectives, and
• Learned about ways to promote the co-brand to their customers. 

Post-training, regardless of module, incorporated additional training tools and reinforcement materials such as takeaways, quick tips, fun facts, and games, to help ensure that learning was affective and information was retained.

In the first 3 fiscal months of 2011, the sales excellence focused module led to improved credit performance year-over-year, while reenergizing associates and increasing program participation. Three major achievements include:

1. In terms of total card applications, the stores in the regions being supported by the MarketBridge program consistently outperformed the total company performance, with up to a 62 percentage point increased improvement year over year. 
2. A 65% training penetration in stores for 2011 contributed to higher performance and associate participation in credit.
3. MarketBridge incentive initiatives alone increased private label card performance by 24%, and co-brand performance by 62%, when compared to pre-program performance.

About MarketBridge
MarketBridge is a leading global provider of technology-enabled sales and marketing solutions and services for Fortune 1000 companies, delivering client results based on an empirical approach to designing, building, and managing programs. Through their understanding of connected sales and marketing, MarketBridge helps clients make investments in brand development and demand generation to measurably drive sales productivity in both direct and indirect sales channels. MarketBridge delivers solutions via three core methodologies, MarketBlueprint, RevenueEngines, and DemandAnalytics, which are customized to fit each client’s unique business objectives. To learn more about MarketBridge, visit www.market-bridge.com.