Prudential’s Top of the Rock University Closes Skills Gap Among Salespeople

Before Top of the Rock University was founded in 2005 as a sales development and training program at Prudential Retirement, financial advisors driving searches for retirement plan providers noted that Prudential's salespeople weren't as polished as their competitors. So the university started with a lofty goal: Develop the most distinguished market-facing employees in the retirement industry.

A few months later, the same financial advisors came back with different feedback. "They had no idea we had started a university and put all of our folks through formal, professional coaching," says Sarah Vita, director of sales training and communication for Prudential Retirement.

"And they said, wow, what are you doing differently?" Shortly thereafter, Prudential started offering its proven programs to these same advisors and other strategic partners, so that together they could better serve solve America's retirement challenges.

Top of the Rock includes a robust university curriculum with classes as varied as consultative selling skills, leading with presence and emotionally intelligent negotiations, to name a few.

Since 2011, the university has added a focus on storytelling to its curriculum. In the financial industry where facts and statistics dominate, storytelling was an unusual thing to add to salesperson training.

"It's hard to say how many deals were won because of storytelling," Vita says. "But we're getting to the place where all of our salespeople are able to tell our Prudential story with authenticity during finals meetings."