Lisa Buonocore

EDET 650 - Internship in Educational Technology

November 17, 2014
Reflection 2

Title: New Sales Rep Profile

Location: Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company
Mentor: Gary Korpita, Director of Sales Training
The focus of my internship this week was to conduct research for my annotated bibliography and to meet with the
subject matter experts for their feedback on the list of questions. There was one group of subject matter experts in particular
that provided detailed feedback. When I look through the document of marked up questions, I realized very quickly that they
were not sure of the overall goal for this assessment. It was evident in their feedback that they did not understand the context
for the questions. I decided to schedule a meeting to help resolve any questions or concerns. This meeting ended up being
more beneficial than I could have ever expected. I started off the meeting by explaining what the goals and objectives are for
the assessment. What are we really trying to achieve, and thats threefold. The first, is to have a way to identify where a sales
rep is on day one with our company. We need to know their starting off point. Next, is to correctly place each sales rep in the
appropriate role based on the skill sets. Finally, we want to be able to find measurable change in learning over a certain period
of time. This led to very candid conversations among the group, and it turned out to be a very collaborative and sharing
session. A big challenge we have is that our sales force is 1099, they are very busy, and they dont need any additional
work. the more talking we did, the more we found better and better solutions for the new rep profile. For instance, instead of
having this survey be conducted during the first class or prior to attending the first class, we decided it would be best to occur
during contracting. Sales reps already have to fill out a registration form, so we would like the sales rep profile to appear in the
contracting system after the registration form. This solves a few issues, such as getting higher response rates because it is in a
system that every sales rep accesses and taking any responsibility to administer the assessment off of our field employees and
sales managers. Now, it is on our team at the home office to build in the test to the contracting system, and we do not add
any additional work to these field people. So how do we determine the correct role based on this assessment? Well, this
assessment must be very short, just a few minutes to complete and consist only of a likert scale. This way, it does not

complicate the contracting process. We will need to develop a way to score the assessment so that it can recommend a
particular role. We do not think it is best to show the recommended role to the sales representative. Instead, this information
will need to be sent to the sales manager and field employees. This is based on previous feedback from sales managers.
Attached is an example of this assessment. I felt as though we made tremendous progress this week, even though it was
difficult and caused a change in direction, I feel it is the best possible solution for our audience. Next, Ill need to have buy in
from the senior leadership in our department before moving forward.

Personal preferences
For each statement select the answer that best describes you.

I enjoy presenting to a group of people.

Strongly
Agree

I enjoy 1-on-1 discussions with individuals.

I enjoy working with database systems.

I prefer to interact with business owners/decision makers.

I prefer to interact with the accounts employees.

I am comfortable making cold prospecting calls.

I enjoy meeting new people.

I enjoy helping others to learn and develop.

I am comfortable being told No by a potential client.

I am easily disappointed.

Statement

I prefer to have in-depth knowledge about how an enrollment works instead of just having a
general understanding.

Agree

Neutral

Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

I am modest about what I have achieved.

I enjoy setting long-term goals.

I consider myself an extrovert.

I consider myself a born sales person.