CoverStory
By Becky Brandstatter
Business-focused topics:
Specific/situational selling skills (impactful questions, overcoming objections, closing)
Pre-call planning
Clinical conversations
Marketing
Market access
Account management and strategy
Bridging the gap (informal touchpoints with business partners)
Professional development:
Communication styles
Courageous conversations
Flexing your emotional intelligence
Personal branding
Annual meetings are critical touchpoints for alignment, motivation and learning. Business partners such as sales, marketing, market access and others lobby for time on the agenda and balancing those priorities with diverse learner needs and rapidly shifting field dynamics can be challenging.
To meet that challenge, the Fresenius learning & development (L&D) team created spark sessions, a strategic innovation to offer a flexible and engaging way to meet both business and learner needs. Over the last several years, our L&D team has implemented spark sessions at national meetings, designed to complement traditional workshops and to add an agile, learner-driven element that focuses on real-time field challenges while supporting overall business objectives.
The name spark sessions reflects the elements of curiosity, creativity and exchange of best practices and ideas that are generated through connections during meetings.
At their core, spark sessions are short, focused and interactive learning rotations that complement traditional workshops. Topics are identified through collaboration with business partners and our Training Advisory Board, a group of sales representatives and managers who support the L&D team.
Sessions center around business or professional development topics. Most are discussion based, with sales representatives rotating through multiple sessions and actively engaging in peer sharing and practical problem solving.
Small groups rotate through a series of sessions, with the number of sessions determined by business needs. Occasionally, the meeting space influences how sessions are configured. We have offered as many as eight distinct sessions and as few as three:
Self-Selection Model: When we offered eight sessions, sales representatives selected four to attend — a “choose your own learning path” approach. Managers reviewed these selections to ensure alignment with individual development goals.
Full-Rotation Model: At other meetings, the entire sales team rotated through the same set of sessions, maximizing shared knowledge and enabling richer cross-team discussion.
Sessions are typically 45- 60 minutes in length, keeping people moving at regular intervals and sustaining a high level of engagement throughout each rotation. We have also varied the approach to session “cohorts” — some years the groups have remained consistent throughout the rotations, whereas other years each rotation brought together a different mix of sales representatives.
We employ a guided facilitation approach to ensure consistency across sessions, focused discussions and real-world relevance. Facilitators may include the L&D team, business partners, field managers or other subject matter experts. Smaller group size ensures that a wider variety of voices are heard, not just the most vocal participants.
Topics are curated collaboratively. As meeting objectives are defined and training needs emerge, workshops begin to take shape. While workshops typically focus on broad skill application and role play, spark sessions provide targeted, high-value support aligned to the meeting goals.
The L&D team partners with business leaders to determine where spark sessions can fill a specific gap. Because these sessions can be developed in less time than traditional workshops, the content can be highly responsive to emerging field needs.
Spark sessions can also meet the needs of diverse learners. “Tenure tracks” can be created to address the needs of newer representatives versus more tenured reps, ensuring relevance across the team.
Since implementation three years ago, spark sessions consistently rank as one of the highlights of our national meetings in post-meeting surveys. Chuck Galey, vice president of Fresenius Renal Pharmaceuticals, observed that “spark sessions have quickly become one of the most valuable ways our teams connect and learn from each other. They bring together people from different regions, help surface new ideas and lead to practical takeaways our teams can use right away.”
Reps report that:
Rich peer sharing across territories is one of the most valuable aspects.
These sessions provide immediately actionable insights.
They walk away with practical strategies, refined sales language and tactics they can leverage upon returning to territory.
When field managers are active participants in spark session discussions, they can reinforce key takeaways during post-meeting coaching events with their teams. This supports a stronger pull- through of best practices, key strategies and tactics that come from these sessions.
While favorable participant feedback is important, ensuring that spark sessions have a positive impact on the business empowers the L&D team to keep them on the meeting agenda. Our sales leaders have taken notice, and Galey added, “We’ve seen higher engagement, stronger team cross-sharing and consistently positive feedback. These open exchanges spark new approaches, help us tackle real challenges together and ultimately drive our success.”
Developing effective spark sessions requires a few critical considerations. Early alignment with business partners ensures topics address the most pressing business needs. The number of sessions and topics will vary and is driven by current or emerging business priorities.
Guided facilitation provides structure with flexibility, allowing rich discussion. Designing strong discussion prompts elicits practical insights and creates a framework for peer-to-peer learning. Smaller groups encourage participation from all experience levels – particularly newer representatives who often feel more comfortable speaking up in these settings.
Each meeting provides new insights which inform and shape future events. Spark sessions continue to evolve in structure, facilitation style and content to keep pace with business needs and learner expectations.
Ultimately, these sessions are about impact. With strong collaborative partnerships, the L&D team can continue to leverage this format to provide the right support at the right time to spark greater success once sales teams return to their territories.
Becky Brandstatter is senior manager of learning and development for Fresenius Renal Pharmaceuticals. Email Becky at becky.brandstatter@freseniusmedicalcare.com or connect through linkedin.com/in/becky-brandstatter-bsn-rn-cptm-7ba5a616.
