I first encountered Kirkpatrick at Indeed, a multinational brand with a robust learning and enablement team at the time that supported several thousand sales and client success reps worldwide. With the right learning and enablement infrastructure, executive sponsorship and access to reliable performance and behavioral data, we witnessed firsthand the benefits of structured training evaluation and connection to business impact.
Conversely, I’ve also experienced the challenges of a small and nimble enablement team at a 3-year-old startup with only a few hundred employees. The business was still trying to piece the data together. Available tools and technology were not optimized to assess learning effectiveness and measure behavioral and performance changes. And the view of learning success was not aligned at the leadership level.
This contrast in working environments underscores the unique challenges and opportunities in applying the Kirkpatrick Model in different stage companies, specifically for sales teams.
Quick Review of Kirkpatrick
The Kirkpatrick Model is a widely recognized framework for evaluating the effectiveness of training programs across these four levels:
- Reaction: How learners respond to the training, ensuring it is engaging and relevant.
- Learning: The extent to which learners acquire the intended knowledge, skills and attitudes.
- Behavior: The degree to which learners apply what they learned on the job.
- Results: The impact of the training on business outcomes, such as revenue growth and productivity.
Sales orgs should typically have the means to measure each of these levels, with surveys to collect feedback (reaction), assessments to track knowledge transfer (learning), call recordings and conversational intelligence to observe learning application (behavior) and job performance reporting from CRM systems like Salesforce (results).
The main principle is that if people feel engaged and confident, they’ll be motivated to learn faster and apply their learning on the job, which should result in positive changes in their job performance.
Challenges in Implementing Kirkpatrick in Startup Sales Orgs
Startups operate in fast-paced, resource-constrained environments where immediate results are prioritized over long-term processes. Implementing the Kirkpatrick Model in these settings poses challenges related to:
Metrics Over Context
Co-founders in startups can often prioritize immediate revenue and pipeline metrics over qualitative insights and contextual evaluations, leading to a preference for straightforward revenue metrics
Resource Intensity
Kirkpatrick requires significant time and resources for data collection, analysis and continuous improvement, which may be scarce in startups due to bandwidth challenges as well as not having access to the right tools and technology.
Structure vs. Flexibility
Implementing Kirkpatrick involves a systematic, structured approach to evaluation that may include pre-defined metrics, regular assessments and iterative improvements, which can be perceived as complex and restrictive to pivoting quickly.
Data Inaccuracy
Poor data management and data integrity hinder the ability to track training outcomes accurately and this is further exacerbated if there is a lack of close collaboration with the revenue operations (RevOps) team, which can result in misaligned priorities and inadequate data support.
Culture Misalignment
A startup with a culture of “revenue at all costs” and immediate wins may not prioritize building a culture of learning and growth, which means the thorough measurement of learning impact may not be prioritized as well.
How Kirkpatrick Could Work in Sales Startup Environment
Despite these challenges, the Kirkpatrick Model can still be effectively implemented in sales teams at startups, with the following considerations in mind.
Alignment on Success Metrics
Establish clear, agreed-upon definitions of learning and enablement success at the senior leadership level to ensure everyone is working toward the same goals. For example, if leadership identifies sales pipeline conversion as a key business problem to solve for, then learning and enablement initiatives must rally around improving win rates of sales-qualified opportunities to close deals.
Executive Champion to Support Learning
A senior executive, such as a chief revenue officer, who champions enablement efforts will drive buy-in and support across the company. Learning initiatives are likely to be adopted by sales teams if the message comes directly from their sales leader.
Collaboration With RevOps
Strategically partner with RevOps to ensure accurate data collection and analysis, which is critical for demonstrating the impact of training programs. This also means being involved in the process of investing in the right tools and technologies to track behavioral changes and measure job performance effectively.
Mechanism for Behavioral Coaching
It’s not enough to train and facilitate knowledge transfer. If behavior is the driver for performance improvements, then a mechanism needs to be implemented to regularly observe and coach for behavioral change, ensuring that training translates into on-the-job performance improvements. Conversational intelligence tools like Gong are excellent for sales coaching.
Greater Impact From Fewer Key Initiatives
Prioritize only a few key initiatives at a time and dive deeply into them. This approach helps to embed new behaviors and ensure that sales reps fully understand and apply what they’ve learned, rather than overwhelming them with too many initiatives. This will also help the business fully leverage Kirkpatrick end-to-end.
Proactively Communicate Impact
Discussions in revenue leadership meetings are often straightforward with concrete data. For revenue enablement or learning teams, the data requires added context to show its impact on revenue and productivity. The explanation of enablement impact tends to be longer and more nuanced, but the time and space to share this may be limited in these meetings. Therefore, proactive communication to business leaders such as biweekly emails can provide visibility on which trainings were executed, their results, the next step to reinforce learning and application and how these efforts influence revenue and pipeline.
Summary
While the Kirkpatrick Model presents some challenges in a startup environment, it remains a valuable tool for measuring and enhancing the effectiveness of training programs. By aligning on success metrics, securing executive support, fostering strong data partnerships, creating bandwidth for behavioral coaching, prioritizing a few key initiatives and proactively communicating efforts, startups can leverage the Kirkpatrick Model to drive meaningful business outcomes and demonstrate impact of their learning and enablement initiatives.
